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THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

AND OTHER ESSAYS 



THE 

YIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

AND OTHER ESSAYS 



BY 



ALBERT H. TOLMAN 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

($fce U!itoer#&e $re££, Cambri&ge 

1904 






COPYRIGHT 1904 BY ALBERT H. TOLMAN 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published April, 1Q04 



- r — H — „ ■ < ' ■■ ■" 3, 



LIBRARY «f CONGRESS 


Two Ctepies 


Received 


MAR 18 


1904 


/ A1 CepyrigM 

CLASS *■> 

cor* 


Entry 
Xac. Ho 

— — _ 



TO 
MY HOME-MAKER 



PREFACE 

In preparing this book for the press, I have been 
greatly helped by the valuable criticisms and sug- 
gestions of my friend Mrs. Ella Adams Moore, of 
The University of Chicago. I wish to express to 
the following persons also my gratitude for gen- 
erous assistance : Mr. Edward Tolman, Dr. Hor- 
ace Howard Furness, Dr. W. J. Rolfe, Rev. F. E. 
Dewhurst, Professor J. M. Manly, Professor F. J. 
Miller, Professor F. A. Blackburn, Professor G. 
C. Howland, Professor Camillo von Klenze, Pro- 
fessor A. M. Elliott, Professor Anna S. Morse, Dr. 
Eleanor P. Hammond, Miss Maude L. Radford, 
and Mr. S. B. Grass. 

A. H. T. 

The University of Chicago, 
February 12, 1904. 



CONTENTS 

THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 1 

I. The Command to Revenge .... 5 

II. " Taint not thy mind " 17 

III. "Nor contrive against thy mother aught' ' 32 

IV. The Traces in " Hamlet " of an Older Play 33 
V. Hamlet as the Mouthpiece of Shakespeare 41 

Conclusion 44 

THE AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN " VANITY FAIR " 49 

STUDIES IN MACBETH 71 

I. One Phase of Macjbeth's Character . . 73 

II. The Knocking at the Gate .... 79 

III. Why is the Sleep- Walking Scene in Prose ? 83 

IV. The Words of the Sleep- Walking Scene . 84 
V. The Show of Eight Kings ... 88 

VI. The Weird Sisters 89 

VII. Did Shakespeare represent the Weird Sis- 
ters as Witches ? 95 

LANIER'S "SCIENCE OF ENGLISH VERSE" . 105 
SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE AND MODERN ADAP- 
TATIONS. With three illustrations . . . .115- 

THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF ENGLISH SOUNDS . 141 
THE FINNISH "KALEVALA" AND THE EPIC 

QUESTION 173 

HAMLET'S " WOO 'T DRINK UP EISEL ? " . . 189 
SHAKESPEARE AND "THE TAMING OF THE 

SHREW" . . 203 



x CONTENTS 

SHAKESPEARE'S "LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON" . 243 
I. The View that the Play called " Love's 

Labour 's Won " has been Lost . . 255 

II. "Love's Labour's Lost" .... 257 

III. "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" . . 262 

IV. " The Tempest " 268 

V. "All's Well That Ends Well" . . 270 
VI. "Much Ado About Nothing" . . . 282 

VII. " The Taming of the Shrew "... 292 

Conclusion 311 

ENGLISH SURNAMES 315 

Place-Names 320 

Surnames from Baptismal Names . . . 322 

Surnames of Rank, Office, and Occupation . 328 

Nicknames 330 

Conclusion . . . 335 

THE STYLE OF ANGLO-SAXON POETRY . . 337 

The Metre 339 

I. Conciseness and Energy .... 343 
II. Repetition of Thought with Variation of 

Expression 345 

III. Disconnectedness 361 

IV. Freedom from the Sensual and Idealiza- 
tion of the Common 370 

V. Seriousness 376 

VI. Tenderness 378 

Conclusion 381 

NATURAL SCIENCE IN A LITERARY EDUCA- 
TION 383 

WAS POE ACCURATE? 397 



^ 



THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 



THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 1 

" Verily, given a printing-press upon German 
soil," says Dr. Furness, " and lo ! an essay on 
Hamlet." England and the United States, as might 
be expected, vie with Germany in contributing to 
the literature of this play. All the sister nations 
of Europe, too, have their own essays on Hamlet. 
Numberless are those who confidently take up the 
task enjoined on Horatio by the dying Prince : — 

" Report me and my cause aright." 

It behooves one, therefore, who would put forth 
another paper upon Hamlet to show cause at the 
outset why he should not be looked upon as a pub- 
lic enemy. 

My apology must be that it is not so much my 
purpose to write a new essay upon this play, as it 
is to classify and interpret the essays which have 
already been written. I desire to lighten the bur- 
den for those who study the literature concerning 

1 Reprinted with changes from vol. xiii. (1898) of the Publica- 
tions of the Modern Language Association, Baltimore. 

The writer has been constantly indebted to the great Vario- 
rum edition of Hamlet, by Dr. H. H. Furness, two vols., Phila- 
delphia, 1877. Each criticism here referred to can be found in that 
work unless otherwise stated. Much help has also been received 
from Professor Loening's admirable book, Die Hamlet-Tragodie 
Shakespeares, Stuttgart. 



4 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

Hamlet, and at the same time to help those who 
are simply readers of the play. Attention will be 
confined for the most part to the central mystery 
of the drama, namely, Why does Hamlet delay to 
revenge the murder of his father, and so to fulfill 
the command of the Ghost ? Was his delay real, or 
only apparent ? Was it blameworthy, or blame- 
less? 

Three separate questions should be borne in mind 
in discussing the central problem of this drama. 
First, how many possible lines of explanation can 
be found for what seems to be the weak and pro- 
crastinating conduct of Hamlet ? Practically the 
same as the preceding, so far as we can see, is a sec- 
ond inquiry, What theories of the play have as a 
matter of fact been put forward by critics ? As we 
proceed, and especially at the close of the paper, a 
third question will naturally present itself, namely, 
How far are the various explanations that have 
been offered, or partial explanations, compatible 
with one another, or even complementary ; and 
how far are they antagonistic, or even completely 
irreconcilable ? The failure of critics to keep this 
question clearly before them has perhaps caused as 
much confusion as any fact connected with the study 
of the drama. A commentator has often sought 
to overthrow the opinion of a predecessor by pre- 
senting considerations entirely compatible with 
those which had been emphasized by his fellow-inter- 
preter. 



THE COMMAND TO REVENGE 5 

I. THE COMMAND TO REVENGE 

A threefold command is laid upon Hamlet by 
the ghost of his father : — 

" If thou didst ever thy dear father love — 

(1) Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. 

But, howsoever thou pursuest this act, 

(2) Taint not thy mind, (3) nor let thy soul contrive 
Against thy mother aught." l 

I. v. 23-86. 

Let us direct our attention, for a time, exclusively 
to the first injunction of the Ghost, the solemn 
adjuration to revenge, leaving the remaining com- 
mands to be considered later. The weight of 
emphasis seems plainly to rest upon this first man- 
date. The two qualifying commands come at the 
end of the closing speech of the Ghost ; and the 
first one of them, " Taint not thy mind," is not 
present at all in the earliest version of the play, the 
First Quarto. 

1 It is possible to hold that what has been printed above as 
the second and third commands is really a single mandate. This 
interpretation may be defended. A regular meaning of " nor " is 
and not. The words " Taint not thy mind, nor let [= and let 
not] thy soul contrive against thy mother aught " may be looked 
upon as two parallel forms of a single command, the first ex- 
pression being more general and the second more specific. This 
is substantially the explanation of L. Pr. in a review of this paper 
in the Jahrbuch of the German Shakespeare Society for 1898 (vol. 
xxxiv. p. 416). Compare these words from the Twenty-Fourth 
Psalm : " Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; and be ye lift up, ye 
everlasting doors." It seems fair to say, however, that the pre- 
sumption is against this unaccustomed use of " nor." 



6 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

At the beginning of our inquiry a difficulty- 
meets us which has probably caused more or less 
trouble to every student of "Hamlet." What is the 
moral standing-ground of the play ? What are its 
ethical presuppositions ? What standards of right 
does it take for granted ? Ought Hamlet to have 
accepted revenge, — an immediate, violent, bloody 
revenge, — as his one, all-inclusive duty ? Those 
students of the play who make especially prominent 
the first command of the Ghost say " Yes." Should 
he have accepted the testimony of the Ghost as final 
and conclusive ? In any case, should the conduct 
of the King when witnessing the play have put an 
end to all doubt and hesitation, and led to imme- 
diate revenge ? Those who accent the command to 
revenge will say " Yes " to one or both of these 
questions. According to this view, Hamlet is to be 
conceived as living at a time when the right and 
duty of blood-revenge is unquestioned. We are 
to accept on this point the passionate standards 
of the natural man. Hamlet is driven forward by 
the command of his father and by his own burning 
desire for vengeance. His task is, as Taine puts it, 
" to go quietly, and, with premeditation, plunge a 
sword into a breast." 

If we adopt this view of the situation and of 
Hamlet's character, what are the possible explana- 
tions of his delay in securing vengeance ? The fol- 
lowing have been more or less clearly put forward 
by various critics : — 

1. An excessive tendency to reflection. 



THE COMMAND TO REVENGE 7 

2. Weakness of will. 

3. An unhealthy or a disturbed emotional nature, 

or both. This explanation takes two 
forms : — 

a. A deep-seated melancholy is a fundamental 
characteristic of Hamlet's nature. 

6. The discovery by Hamlet of the lies, hypo- 
crisies, infidelities of life has brought with 
it a sickness of heart which paralyzes the 
powers of action. That is, an extreme 
moral sensitiveness is the important emo- 
tional quality. 

It is clear that these two statements, a 
and 6, do not antagonize each other ; it 
is entirely possible to accept them both. 

4. Suspicion of the Ghost, and doubt of the 

truth of his revelation. 

5. An overpowering love for Ophelia. 

6. A clear or a lurking consciousness of mental 

derangement. 

7. Interest in playing the role of madman. 

8. A wish to be a reformer, to set right his time. 

9. Bodily infirmity. 
1$. Cowardice. 

The first three of the above explanations are 
closely affiliated ; they naturally complement one 
another. They agree in representing Hamlet's dif- 
ficulty as personal, subjective : the first suggestion 
would make the defect in his nature an intellectual 
one ; the second would make it volitional ; the third, 
emotional, temperamental. The attentive reader 



8 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

will note that these three separate suggested causes 
may fairly be looked upon to some degree as dif- 
ferent ways of saying the same thing. By an ex- 
cessive tendency to reflection we mean excessive in 
proportion to the activity of the other powers, es- 
pecially the powers of action ; by weakness of will 
we may mean simply weakness in proportion to the 
activity of the other powers of the mind under the 
given circumstances. To say that a man reflects too 
much is practically to say that he decides, acts too 
little. And accompanying all reflection and voli- 
tion, but deeper than they, are the great tides of 
the emotional being and the Gulf Stream of tem- 
perament. 

It is very natural, therefore, if any one of these 
first three suggestions is accepted, to give some 
weight to all of them. Students of the play, how- 
ever, have often championed a single one of these 
considerations, without recognizing the others. 

It is along the lines just indicated that the first 
great critics of Shakespeare interpreted the char- 
acter of the Danish Prince. Coleridge pointed out 
Hamlet's " great, almost enormous, intellectual ac- 
tivity," — what Vischer calls the " excess in Hamlet 
of a reflective, meditative habit of mind." Among 
the many scholars who have followed the great 
English interpreter in making prominent the tend- 
ency of Hamlet to lose himself in reflection, I will 
mention Hazlitt, Dowden, and Hermann Grimm. 
Taine and others, who speak of Hamlet's " too 
lively imagination," also belong here. 



THE COMMAND TO REVENGE 9 

Goethe, in his famous criticism of the play, ap- 
parently intended to attribute to Hamlet both weak- 
ness of volition and extreme moral sensitiveness; 
but infirmity of will seems to have been most pro- 
minent in his thought. To him the tragedy tells 
the story of " a great deed laid upon a soul unequal 
to the performance of it." Richard Grant White 
characterizes Hamlet as " constitutionally irreso- 
lute, purposeless, and procrastinating." Lowell 
and Schlegel also emphasize his lack of will power. 

Loening looks upon Hamlet's melancholy tem- 
perament as the fundamental fact in his nature. 
His tendency to lose himself in gloomy reflection 
and especially in bitter self-condemnation, his un- 
willingness to make decisions, and his inability to 
set before himself and carry out any consistent, 
premeditated line of effective action, — these char- 
acteristics Loening considers to be but natural 
manifestations and accompaniments of this melan- 
choly temperament. This interpreter wisely makes 
Hamlet's emotional nature the primary fact. 

" Thought is deeper than all speech, 
Feeling deeper than all thought." 

Loening points out that " great intellectual 
activity" does not necessarily tend to keep one 
from acting, and calls to mind Caesar's judgment 
upon Cassius, — " He thinks too much : such men 
are dangerous." A settled, constitutional aversion 
toward decision and action seems to be the deeper 
cause underneath Hamlet's " excessive tendency to 
reflection." 



10 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

A German critic, Sievers, holds that Hamlet is 
kept from acting by what I have above called ex- 
treme moral sensitiveness. Sievers says : — 

" Hamlet is indeed a costly vase full of lovely flowers, 
for he is a pure human being, penetrated by enthusi- 
asm for the Great and the Beautiful, living wholly in 
the Ideal, and, above all things, full of faith in man; 
and the vase is shattered into atoms from within, — this 
and just this Goethe truly felt, — but what causes the 
ruin of the vase is not that the great deed of avenging 
a father's murder exceeds its strength, but it is the 
discovery of the falseness of man, the discovery of the 
contradiction between the ideal world and the actual, 
which suddenly confronts him : ... in short, Hamlet 
perishes because the gloomy background of life is sud- 
denly unrolled before him, because the sight of this robs 
him of his faith in life and in good, and because he now 
cannot act." 

It is an unimportant fact that the present writer 
agrees with the innumerable company who have 
accepted some form of that general theory of the 
play with which we have so , far been dealing. 
Some mediation is necessary, to be sure, between 
the various views that have been outlined. More- 
over, this line of interpretation needs, I think, to 
be supplemented at a number of points ; but it 
should not be given up. We should be especially 
careful not to look upon Hamlet's character as de- 
fective solely upon the intellectual, the volitional, 
or the emotional side. This drama, like real life, 
knows nothing of the sharp lines of division between 
intellect, feeling, and will, once dear to psychology. 



THE COMMAND TO REVENGE 11 

It is well to remind ourselves before we go far- 
ther that Hamlet does act with great decision and 
energy at several points in the play. Those who 
accept the view of Werder, to be explained later, 
contend that Hamlet's true character manifests 
itself unchecked by circumstances in these vigorous 
measures. Loening's explanation of these out- 
breaks, and also of the frequent violence of Ham- 
let's language, is that the Prince has in his nature 
a passionate strain, " a choleric element." Under 
sudden provocation, and with an opportunity for 
action immediately before him, Hamlet can be bold 
and decisive. He warns Laertes, in the struggle 
over the body of Ophelia, that there is in him 
" something dangerous, which let thy wiseness fear." 

We pass now from these more fundamental sug- 
gestions to the fourth possible ground for delay in- 
dicated above, Hamlet's fear that the Ghost may 
have deceived him. This is usually accepted as 
having much weight. Just before the close of 
Act II. the hero says : — 

" The spirit that I have seen 
May be the devil : and the devil hath power 
To assume a pleasing" shape ; yea, and perhaps 
Out of my weakness and my melancholy, 
As he is very potent with such spirits, 
Abuses me to damn me." 

II. ii. 627-32. 

Loening points out, however, that all the remain- 
ing portions of the soliloquy in which these words 
occur take for granted the entire truth of the 
Ghost's revelation and the guilt of the King. This 



12 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

fact seems to show that Hamlet's suspicion of the 
Ghost is only a pretense, in which he tries to find 
both a justification for the two months of inaction 
that have elapsed since the revelation of the Ghost 
was made to him, and an additional reason in favor 
of the proposed play. 

The next reason for delay that has been sug- 
gested is connected with the love interest of the 
play. At the beginning of Act II. Ophelia tells 
Polonius of the meeting " so piteous and profound " 
which has just taken place between the Prince and 
herself. This passage, with others, has suggested 
the opinion that the devotion of the hero to her 
affects him so deeply, so absorbs his soul, that it 
furnishes an additional explanation of his dilatori- 
ness. A certain Dr. Woelffel probably stands alone 
in looking upon " the failure of Ophelia to respond 
to Hamlet's love in all its depth and ardor " as 
" the turning point in the tragedy." 

Goethe's evil interpretation of the character of 
Ophelia seems to me entirely uncalled for ; and 
some other German critics have been eager to outdo 
their master. It may be that Goethe's explana- 
tions prove some impurity of mind — but not in 
Ophelia. For us, as for Laertes, " from her fair 
and unpolluted flesh " the " violets spring." 

But little space can be given here to what Furness 
calls " the one great insoluble mystery of Hamlet's 
sanity." The various opinions range all the way 
from the conviction of Hudson and others, that the 
Prince is not sane, to the view of Furness, " that 



THE COMMAND TO REVENGE 13 

he is neither mad nor pretends to be." Lowell 
speaks of Hamlet's " perpetual inclination to 
irony " ; and Weiss would make this the explana- 
tion of most things that have seemed to many to 
indicate a feigning of insanity. 

I accept the usual view that Hamlet is not mad 
and that he does feign madness ; lack of sanity is 
not therefore for me an explanation of his delay. 
Hamlet's soul is indeed violently agitated by the 
words of the Ghost ; but the pretense that his mind 
is diseased seems to me a device, taken up at first 
on the impulse of the moment, by means of which 
he both avoids decisive action and makes it possible 
to give safe though veiled utterance to his tumultu- 
ous feelings. 

Hamlet's words to Laertes before the fencing-bout 
(V. ii. 237-255) constitute one of the strongest 
arguments of those who insist that he is deranged. 
The force of this speech, however, is not entirely 
clear. That one's words shall convey the truth to 
the listener may well be called a higher standard 
of veracity than that one shall merely tell the 
truth; and it can fairly be argued that, even if 
Hamlet knows himself to have been entirely sane, 
his words are well adapted to convey to Laertes 
the truth about his responsibility for the death of 
Polonius. 

A few students not only accept the mental de- 
rangement of the hero as a fact, but consider it to 
be so constant, serious, and deep-seated as to fur- 
nish the sole and the sufficient explanation for all 



14 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

the irregularities of his conduct. An article by 
Mr. Oakeshott seems to advocate this opinion. 1 

Except for those who take the somewhat extreme 
position just indicated, the question whether Ham- 
let's madness is real or pretended is perhaps not 
of central importance in the interpretation of the 
drama. Grimm and Lewes have argued very for- 
cibly that it is not possible to make up one's mind 
on this point, and that Shakespeare did not intend 
to have us do so. I believe that the debate on this 
topic concerns largely the use of terms, the defini- 
tion of madness ; and that it often indicates no fun- 
damental difference of opinion between the opposing 
sides. Hamlet is sane enough to be the responsible 
hero of a great tragedy. He is not sane enough to 
be pronounced rational by the experts : few are. 

The following words of Edwin Booth have great 
force, and they come from one to whom all are glad 
to listen : — 

" To my dull thinking, Hamlet typifies uneven or un- 
balanced genius. But who can tell us what genius of any 
sort whatever means ? The possessor, or rather the pos- 
sessed, if he is, as in Hamlet's case, more frequently its 
slave than its master, is irresistibly and often uncon- 
sciously swayed by its capriciousness. Great minds to 
, madness closely are allied. Hamlet's mind, at the very 
edge of frenzy, seeks its relief in ribaldry. For a like 
reason would my father open, so to speak, the safety 
valve of levity in some of his most impassioned moments. 
At the instant of intense emotion, when the spectators 

1 " Hamlet. From a Student's Notebook," The Westminster 
Review. Reprinted in the Eclectic Magazine for August, 1897. 



THE COMMAND TO REVENGE 15 

were enthralled by his magnetic influence, the trage- 
dian's overwrought brain would take refuge from its own 
threatening storm beneath the jester's hood, and while 
turned from the audience he would whisper some silliness 
or ' make a face.' When he left the stage, however, no 
allusion to such seeming frivolity was permitted. His 
fellow-actors who perceived these trivialities ignorantly 
attributed his conduct at such times to lack of feeling, 
whereas it was extreme excess of feeling which thus 
forced his brain back from the very verge of madness. 
Only those who have known the torture of severe mental 
tension can appreciate the value of that one little step 
from the sublime to the ridiculous. My close acquaint- 
ance with so fantastic a temperament as was my father's 
so accustomed me to that in him that much of Hamlet's 
4 mystery ' seems to me no more than idiosyncrasy." x 

Probably all who think that Hamlet makes a pre- 
tense of madness will agree that the interest which 
he takes in this feigning helps to keep him from 
positive action. An English writer, Boas, says : — 

" Hamlet becomes absorbed in the intellectual fascina- 
tion of his role ; he revels in the opportunities it gives 
him of bewildering those about him, of letting fly shafts 
of mockery, here, there, and everywhere. But these 
verbal triumphs are Pyrrhic victories, which draw him 
further and further from his legitimate task." 2 

That Hamlet, shocked by the evil about him, de- 
sires to open the eyes of his generation to its cor- 
ruptness and to act as a reformer, has been thought 
to be implied in the couplet, — 

1 Quoted in the Chicago Record-Herald for July 2, 1903. 

2 Shakspere and His Predecessors, New York, 1896, p. 398. 



16 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

" The time is out of joint : cursed spite, 
That ever I was born to set it right ! " 

I. v. 188-9. 

Professor Brandl thinks that this desire has force 
in keeping the hero back from action. 1 The words 
seem to the present writer to be a violent expres- 
sion of Hamlet's antipathy toward the task which 
the Ghost has laid upon him. 

It is believed by some that bodily weakness helps 
to keep the Prince from action. The Queen says of 
Hamlet at the fencing-bout, " He 's fat, and scant 
of breath " (V. ii. 298). There are other expres- 
sions in the play which have been taken to indicate 
that the Prince is not sound of body. Loening 
thinks that the evidence points to an internal fat- 
ness, fatness of the heart ; and he believes that this 
physical infirmity helps to explain the inactivity of 
the hero. 

This word " fat " has been a stone of stumbling. 
Although there is no authority for any other word, 
" fat " has been looked upon either as a misprint 
for " hot " or " faint," or as referring to the physi- 
cal appearance of Burbage, the first actor to play 
this role. 

At least one interpreter, Eohrbach, has looked 
upon Hamlet as a plain coward, and has found 
in this fact alone the decisive reason for his inac- 
tion. While other scholars make this consideration 
less prominent, there are many who find in the 
Prince some measure of cowardice. 

1 Shakspere, Berlin, 1894, pp. 151, 154. 



TAINT NOT THY MIND 17 

II. "TAINT NOT THY MIND " 

If we look now at the second command of the 
Ghost, — 

" But, howsoever thou pursuest this act, 
Taint not thy mind," 

I. v. 84-5. 

what further considerations offer themselves as pos- 
sible explanations of Hamlet's delay? Certainly 
we must consider the following : — 

1. A filial desire and purpose to obey this in- 
junction, " Taint not thy mind." 

2. Conscientious scruples against blood-revenge, 
and an instinctive shrinking from it as barbarous. 

3. A special aversion to killing one who, though 
stained with crime, is the brother of Hamlet's 
father, the husband of his mother, and his King. 

4. A sensitive fear of the Prince that the at- 
tainment of the crown is his real object, or will 
seem to be. 

5. A clear perception on the part of Hamlet 
that, if he shall kill the King, he will be unable 
to justify the act in the eyes of the Danish people. 

6. A desire to expose, disgrace, and dethrone 
the King, and so punish him before the world, and 
a belief that this is what the Ghost really commands. 

We have already noted that some scholars do 
not consider that the words " Taint not thy mind " 
constitute a separate mandate, but that they are 
merely introductory to the injunction, " nor let thy 
soul contrive against thy mother aught." The 



18 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

acceptance of this view would modify some things 
that will be here said ; but the considerations taken 
up in this second division of the paper would neces- 
sarily receive attention, however we interpret these 
words. 

All will admit the force of the first motive men- 
tioned, Hamlet's desire to obey this injunction of 
his father. The difficulty lies solely in interpreting 
the command. The second ground suggested as an 
explanation of Hamlet's conduct is that he has con- 
scientious scruples against blood-revenge and an in- 
stinctive aversion to it. If we accept these motives 
as conceivable and consistent with the play, then 
Hamlet finds himself confronted with an intensely 
tragic dilemma. The long-accepted interpretation 
of his character put forth by Goethe and Coleridge, 
taken by itself, seems deficient in dramatic power. 
Professor Corson well asks, " Where is the dra- 
matic interest to come from, with such an irre- 
deemable do-nothing for the hero of the drama as 
Coleridge represents Hamlet to be ? " * 

The opinion that Hamlet is held back from 
action by conscientious scruples was forcibly put 
by a writer in the " Quarterly Review " in 1847. 
Hamlet accuses himself either of 

" Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple 
Of thinking too precisely on the event," 

IV. iv. 40-1. 

and he seems to reveal his secret questionings of 
heart when he asks Horatio, even after the King 
has tried to take his life, — 

1 Introduction to Shakespeare, Boston, 1893, p. 218. 



TAINT NOT THY MIND 19 

" is 't not perfect conscience, 
To quit him with this arm ? " 

V. ii. 67-8. 

Loening seems to have shown, however, that the 
context forbids us to look upon the line, — 

" Thus conscience does make cowards of us all," 

in. i. 83. 

as a proof that conscientious scruples keep Ham- 
let from acting. But the line does imply that the 
Prince is sensitive to moral considerations. 

The opinion just outlined was set forth in the 
" Quarterly Review " as opposed to the explana- 
tion " that the thinking part of Hamlet predomi- 
nates over the active " ; but it is not necessary to 
look upon the two interpretations as antagonistic. 
Both together may be better than either alone. 

A great objection to the view now before us is 
that it makes the Ghost assign to Hamlet what 
may fairly be called an impossible task ; but is 
there not a contradiction at this point in the play 
too deeply fixed to be denied or overlooked ? If 
Hamlet determines at the same time to secure re- 
venge and to keep his mind untainted, has he not 
adopted contradictory principles of action, if we 
give to the words " revenge " and " taint not thy 
mind " their natural meaning ? He who sets be- 
fore him as his chosen task the accomplishment of 
blood-revenge must fling to the winds all other 
considerations ; he who is determined, howsoever 
he pursues his course, not to taint his mind, can- 
not seek that " wild justice," revenge. Whether or 



20 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

not Hamlet clearly perceives the fact, may not this 
inherent contradiction, this fixed dilemma, be an 
important cause for his delay ? By this explana- 
tion, we have an irresistible force, the passionate 
desire for vengeance, encountering an immovable 
obstacle in Hamlet's conscience, made more firm 
by the warning command, " Taint not thy mind." 
Is not this the tragic conflict ? 

In this view Hamlet is not " the natural man," 
neither is he the Christian minister of justice. He 
is " in a strait " betwixt the two, yielding now to 
one impulse, now to another. It is noticeable that 
both Christian and natural sentiments appear freely 
in this play, and almost side by side : — 

" Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes 
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, 
The bird of dawning singeth all night long." 

I. i. 158-60. 
" Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder." 

I. v. 25. 

I am very glad that Taine has said so bluntly 
that Hamlet's task is simply " to go quietly, and, 
with premeditation, plunge a sword into a breast." 
How many readers believe that all the ethical pre- 
suppositions of the play, its entire moral atmos- 
phere, find adequate expression in this doctrine of 
assassination? Moreover, if Hamlet's task is so 
simple, there seems to be no fitness in the words, 
''howsoever thou pursuest this act." 

After a most elaborate argument on this point, 
Loening accepts as his own the following statement 
of Vischer : — 



TAINT NOT THY MIND 21 

" That blood-revenge is an unquestioned and sacred 
duty is absolutely taken for granted in this tragedy ; the 
man who opposes this opinion has no longer any claim 
to understand the play." 

Loening admits, however, that the mediaeval 
church looked upon private revenge as sinful. The 
doctrine of Purgatory, too, came from the Church. 
What wonder that the Ghost, escaping from pur- 
gatorial fires, speaks to Hamlet words of warning 
as well as words of incitement? The command 
" Taint not thy mind " is not in the First Quarto ; 
why is it present in the later versions ? What do 
these words mean, if Hamlet is free to put an end 
to the King's life in any way that he may choose? 

There can be no doubt, I think, that Shake- 
speare practically takes for granted in his plays 
the moral standards of his own age. Just as we 
are to explain from the peculiar legal status of cer- 
tain English cities of Shakespeare's own day Shy- 
lock's words,. — 

" let the danger light 
Upon your charter and your city's freedom," — 

Merchant of Venice, IV. i. 38-9. 

so we are to interpret our play, on the whole, by 
the moral standards of Shakespeare's England. 
Francis de Belleforest, a French gentleman, prob- 
ably wrote his version of the story of Hamlet in 
1570. This version is believed to be the source 
from which Shakespeare took the story. The 
earliest known copy of the English translation of 
Belleforest bears the date 1608. Though Belle- 



22 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

forest distinctly states that he is giving an account 
of an early time when the Danes were ".barbarous 
and uncivil," the following passage from the Eng- 
lish version, one of several that could be cited, will 
show that the incompatibility between Christianity 
and the finest morality on the one hand, and the 
practice of blood-revenge on the other, was clearly 
felt in Shakespeare's day, and could well be sug- 
gested to him by the very work from which he is 
supposed to have taken this particular story : — 

" . . . he that will follow this course must speak and 
do all things whatsoever that are pleasing and accept- 
able to him whom he meaneth to deceive . . . ; for that 
is rightly to play and counterfeit the fool, when a man 
is constrained to dissemble and kiss his hand whom in 
heart he could wish a hundred feet depth under the 
earth, so he might never see him more, if it were not a 
thing wholly to be disliked in a Christian, who by no 
means ought to have a bitter gall or desires infected 
with revenge." * 

The beginning of Bacon's essay on Revenge also 
helps to support the opinion that in Shakespeare's 
time blood-revenge was sometimes looked upon as 
an unworthy thing. The essay opens with these 
words : u Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which 
the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law 
to weed it out." 

Moreover, the Prince can in no way bring the 
King to any sort of judicial duel, or judgment of 
God, but must kill him treacherously, must stab 

1 Furness, vol. ii. p. 95. 



TAINT NOT THY MIND 23 

him in the back, if not literally, at least practically. 
This fact would make actual blood-revenge very 
distasteful to one possessing real fineness of feel- 
ing. What wonder if the warning cry rings in 
Hamlet's ears, " Howsoever thou pursuest this act, 
taint not thy mind ! " 

The view that Hamlet is held back from acting 
by " the secret voice of conscience, and the shrink- 
ing of a delicate soul from an assassination in cold 
blood" is supported by Richardson and Ulrici, 
by passages in the earlier writings of Hudson, and 
by the French critics Mezieres and Courdaveaux. 
The last writer says : " Seek, outside of this expla- 
nation, one that explains everything, and you will 
seek in vain." 

The third suggestion noted above, that Hamlet 
has a special aversion to killing his father's brother, 
his mother's husband, and his King, will seem to 
most persons about as wrong-headed a view as could 
well be put forward. Certainly it is most natural 
to look upon these considerations, especially the 
last two, as the strongest incitements to revenge. 
However, those who make much of the fineness of 
Hamlet's nature are liable at times to approximate 
this untenable position before they are aware of 
doing so. 

Some commentators believe that Hamlet's fear 
that the crown shall seem to be his object is an im- 
portant reason for his delay. Some passages in the 
latter part of the play may be adduced in support 
of this position. Hamlet says, — "I eat the air, 



24 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

promise-crammed " (III. ii. 99) ; and later in the 
same scene complains, — 

" I lack advancement. 

Bosencrantz. How can that be, when you have the voice of 
the king* himself for your succession in Denmark ? 

Hamlet. Ay, but sir, * While the grass grows,' — the proverb 
is something musty." 

HI. ii. 354-9. 

Personal disappointment may add to his bitter- 
ness when the Prince calls Claudius 

" a vice of kings ; 
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, 
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, 
And put it in his pocket ! " 

III. iv. 98-101. 

To his bosom friend Horatio, Hamlet is very ex- 
plicit. It is a crowning wrong to himself that the 
King has 

" Popp'd in between the election and [his] hopes." 

V. ii. 65. 

The most important theory of this drama that 
has been put forward in recent years explains Ham- 
let's conduct entirely from the nature of his task. 
According to this view, his mission is to depose 
and disgrace the King, and thus set matters right 
before the world, and not merely to put an end 
to his life. The adulterer, murderer, and usurper 
must taste the full bitterness of a felon's death. 
This theory, suggested by Ziegler in 1803, put with 
great force by Klein in 1846, and accepted by L. 
Schipper in 1862, was given full and adequate ex- 
pression by Karl Werder in 1875. Hudson and 
Professor Corson accept this general position. 



TAINT NOT THY MIND 25 

I will let Werder present his own case. He 
says : — 

"I deny, first of all, . . . that it is possible for 
Hamlet to dare to do what the critics . . . almost 
unanimously require of him. . . . The situation of 
things, the force of circumstances, the nature of his task, 
directly forbid it. . . . We are in the secret, we sit, as 
the public, in the council of the gods. But the Danes 
do not know that Claudius is the murderer of his bro- 
ther, and are never to be convinced of it if Hamlet 
slays the King, and then appeals for his vindication 
to a private communication which a ghost has made to 
him. . . . 

" But what now has Hamlet in truth to do ? What 
is his real task ? A very sharply defined duty. . . . 
Not to crush the King at once, . . . but to bring him 
to confession, to unmask, and convict him : this is his 
first, nearest, inevitable duty. As things stand, truth 
and justice can be known only from one mouth, the 
mouth of the crowned criminal, ... or they remain 
hidden and buried till the last day. This is the point ! 
Herein lie the terrors of this tragedy, — its enigmatical 
horror, its inexorable misery ! The encoffined secrecy of 
the unprovable crime : this is the subterranean spring, 
whence flows its power to awaken fear and sympa- 
thy. 

" Killing the King before the proof is adduced would 
be, not killing the guilty, but killing the proof ; it would 
be, not the murder of the criminal, but the murder of 
Justice ! . . . 

"Upon the one side, a well-defended fortress, and 
without, a single man, who is to take it, he alone. So 
stands Hamlet confronting his task ! " 

Hamlet's outcry at the close of the first act 



26 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

may be interpreted as supporting the view of Wer- 
der: — 

" The time is out of joint : cursed spite, 
That ever I was born to set it right ! " 

I. v. 188-9. 

The usual explanation of the stabbing of Po- 
lonius is that Hamlet takes him for the King. This 
view seems to make the following words of the 
Ghost to Hamlet, a few moments later, uncalled 
for, unless we accept the theory of Werder : - — 

" Do not forget : this visitation 
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose." 

III. iv. 110-1. 

However, Loening's interpretation of this inci- 
dent seems preferable on the whole. The cries of 
Polonius for help excite Hamlet to a fury of anger 
against the unknown intruder who has thus treach- 
erously learned his secret, and he instantly makes 
a thrust through the arras at the hidden enemy. 
When the Queen asks, — 

" me, what hast thou done ? " 

Hamlet's first answer is, — 

" Nay, I know not." 

Then, apparently, the Queen's excited manner 
arouses his suspicion and causes him to ask, — 

" Is it the King ?" 
According to Loening, it is to this thought, which 
first entered his mind after the fatal stab had been 
given, that Hamlet refers in the words, — 

" Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell ! 
I took thee for thy better." 

III. iv. 25-32. 



I 



TAINT NOT THY MIND 27 

One advantage of Werder's view is, that what most 
students regard as Hamlet's pretense of madness 
is at once adequately motived. This device enables 
him " to give some vent to what is raging within 
him " without awakening suspicion ; and possibly, 
" should any favorable opportunity offer itself," 
"more active operations against the enemy than 
would be permitted to a sane man " may be toler- 
ated in one supposed to be mad. 

This view also exalts and ennobles our conception 
of Hamlet's character. All the familiar charges 
against him fall to the ground. The Prince whom 
we all love and pity now claims also our unqualified 
admiration. As good and wise as he is ill-fated, he 
stands forth almost without " spot, or wrinkle, or 
any such thing." The drama becomes almost en- 
tirely a tragedy of Fate, not a tragedy of Character. 

All must grant, too, that the situation and the 
progress of the action, as Werder outlines them, are 
intensely tragic. So deeply does the writer feel this 
that he has often wished that Shakespeare might 
have written this " Hamlet " also. Says Hudson, in 
presenting this conception of the play : — 

" The very plan of the drama, as I understand it, is 
to crush all the intellectual fragrance out of Hamlet, 
between a necessity and an impossibility of acting. The 
tremendous problem, the terrible dilemma which he has 
to grapple with, is one that Providence alone can solve, 
as Providence does solve it at the last/' 1 

But I must renounce Werder and all his works. 

1 School edition of Hamlet, p. 21. 



\ 



28 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

The natural impression which the drama as we have 
it makes upon an unprejudiced reader is not con- 
sistent with this new explanation. 

Werder does not give the natural interpretation 
to the first commission of the Ghost, the demand 
for revenge. He makes up for this, so to speak, by 
forcing the meaning of the second command also. 
To revenge does not naturally mean " to bring to 
confession, to unmask, and convict " ; and the words 
" Taint not thy mind " are most naturally inter- 
preted as an incitement to Hamlet to obey scrupu- 
lously the promptings of his conscience, not as a 
warning to guard his reputation. 

In spite of an amount of soliloquy which is un- 
exampled in dramatic literature, this theory is 
obliged to assume that Hamlet fails to express the 
one purpose which fills his mind. After explaining 
what seems to him to be the real situation when 
Hamlet discovers the King at prayer, Werder says : 
" Hamlet, it is true, does not himself say this, — 
no ! But the state of the case says it instead." 
This form of speech is significant of Werder's en- 
tire method. He is constantly explaining to us his 
own view of u the state of the case"; he makes little 
effort to prove that Hamlet holds the same view. 
The Prince is mistaken, then, when he taunts him- 
self with " unpacking his heart." This he cannot 
do ; at every point " the state of the case " must be 
called in to speak for him. It must be admitted, 
though, that the words of the hero when he comes 
upon the praying King are looked upon by very 



TAINT NOT THY MIND 29 

few persons as a truthful, or at least as a full, ex- 
pression of his mind. 

What Hamlet actually says in his soliloquies, 
also, is decidedly at variance with what " the state 
of the case" is supposed to be saying for him. 
Werder's interpretation of the first part of the so- 
liloquy beginning " O, what a rogue and peasant 
slave am I!" (II. ii. 576) is, that the hero re- 
lieves his agony by " falling out with himself " and 
uttering unjust reproaches. Concerning Hamlet's 
sharp arraignment of himself after he learns the 
destination of the troops of Fortinbras, Professor 
Corson says with admirable frankness : " It must 
not be explained on the theory of Hamlet's indis- 
position to action, much as it may appear to sup- 
port that theory." 

Dramatic soliloquy is largely a conventional de- 
vice for informing the audience concerning the state 
of mind of the speaker. In most places where Shake- 
speare represents his characters as thus thinking 
aloud they certainly would not naturally do so in 
real life. If we can explain away a mass of such 
utterances, and suppose that the solitary speaker is 
systematically imtrue to his real thought, then the 
interpretation of dramatic soliloquy becomes not 
merely a fine art, but one so superfine as to be al- 
together beyond the reach of merely human powers. 

The play before the King may, apparently, 
achieve two results if entirely successful : it may 
convince Hamlet of the Ghost's integrity and of 
the truth of his story ; and it may surprise the King 



30 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

into some kind of public confession (II. ii. 617-21, 
627-8; III. ii. 85-7). Those inclined to the 
Werder view naturally consider that the central 
purpose of this device is to obtain some sort of con- 
fession from the King. This result is not secured, 
yet Hamlet seems to regard his experiment as highly 
successful. He has been more concerned in satis- 
fying his own doubts than in inducing the King to 
confess. 

I cannot believe, however, that the Prince has 
set either of these purposes before him in any 
genuine, earnest way. Both are pretenses. He has 
never really questioned the honesty of the Ghost, 
and he has little hope of any open confession from 
the King. Hamlet delights in torturing the King 
by means of the play ; and he really betrays him- 
self in order to have that pleasure. Apart from 
his desire to punish the King in this way, the play 
is hardly more than a plausible excuse for doing 
nothing. 

Loening insists with reason that Shakespeare 
would not have allowed the King to meet death 
until after he had been branded before the world, 
if this were looked upon as the punishment which 
justice demanded, and if this had been enjoined by 
supernatural visitations. 

There is a strong presumption against a theory 
which asks us to believe that Goethe and Coleridge 
misunderstood this play completely, and that they 
have been followed in their error by the great mass 
of the students of Shakespeare. Everything which 



TAINT NOT THY MIND 31 

they said about " Hamlet " is to be considered 
false, and pretty much everything which they did 
not say is to be accepted as true. Of course, a 
disputed question cannot be settled by an appeal 
to authority ; but there is a weighty presumption 
against the new view, at least in the extreme form 
in which it is usually stated. In some milder and 
limited statement, it may perhaps be compatible 
with the opinions that it seeks to displace. Werder 
himself unwittingly recognizes that a heavy burden 
of proof rests upon him when he says : " That this 
point for a century long should never have been 
seen, is the most incomprehensible thing that has 
ever happened in aesthetic criticism from the very 
beginning of its existence." We have noted, how- 
ever, that there were Werderites before Werder. 
Baumgart says with great cogency : — 

" Where does the Ghost or Hamlet speak of punish- 
ment merely, and of the necessity of a previous unmask- 
ing ? It is revenge alone that the Ghost calls for, and 
swift revenge that Hamlet promises. . . . That the 
conviction wrought by the play is to lead to any measure 
looking to the public arraignment of the King, there is 
not a word to intimate. There is nothing in the whole 
piece which hints at any plan of Hamlet's, or at any 
intention to form one." 

The popularity of Werder' s theory seems to me 
to be parallel to that of certain Confessions and 
Creeds. These have often been widely accepted 
because more logical and self-consistent than the 
very Scriptures which suggested them, and which 
they sought to explain. 



32 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

III. "NOR CONTRIVE AGAINST THY MOTHER 
AUGHT " 

The third command of the Ghost must now be 
considered : — 

" nor let thy soul contrive 
Against thy mother aught : leave her to heaven 
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, 
To prick and sting her." 

I. v. 85-8. 

If we try to make this command prominent in 
explaining Hamlet's course, the following grounds 
for his inaction suggest themselves : — 

1. A desire and purpose to obey this injunction 
of his father. 

2. Affection for his mother, and a desire to save 
her from the shame of exposure. 

So far as the writer knows, Tschischwitz is the 
only critic who has given a central place to these 
motives as really determining Hamlet's conduct. I 
quote his comment upon the following passage : — 

" O, most wicked speed, to post 
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets ! 
It is not nor it cannot come to good : 
But break, my heart ; for I must hold my tongue." 

I. ii. 156-9. 

" Observe well that Hamlet is forced by his piety to 
maintain this silence in presence of the courtiers under 
all circumstances, even after the appearance of the 
Ghost. It is not until his heart really breaks that he 
breaks this silence also, and gives Horatio permission 
to proclaim what has happened." 



TRACES OF AN OLDER PLAY 33 

Some other commentators look upon this line 
of argument as having some force. Weiss has 
said : — 

" The question of revenge becomes more difficult to 
settle, especially as it involves widowing his mother ; 
and it is noticeable that the father himself, who after- 
wards deplored Hamlet's irresolution, had previously 
made suggestions to him [rather, imposed a command 
upon him] which hampered his action by constraining 
him to feel how complicated the situation was." 

In point of fact, however, to prove the King 
guilty of the murder of his brother would not ne- 
cessarily involve the exposure of the Queen. The 
Prince is simply forbidden to take vengeance upon 
his mother. Indeed, in the First Quarto, where 
the situation is the same as in the later form of 
the play, Hamlet implores the Queen : — 

" Mother, but assist me in revenge, 
And in his death your infamy shall die." 

The Queen replies : — 

" Hamlet, I vow by that majesty 
That knows our thoughts and looks into our hearts, 
I will conceal, consent, and do my best, 
What stratagem soe'er thou shalt devise." 

IV. THE TRACES IN HAMLET OF AN OLDER 
PLAY 

In attempting to interpret " Hamlet " by any 
explanation or combination of explanations derived 
from a study of the drama itself, some difficulties 
and discrepancies remain to trouble the student. 



34 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

In the present division of this paper and in the 
following one, we shall take up certain considera- 
tions that are not drawn from the play itself. 

The noble words of King Thoas in Goethe's 
" Iphigenie " almost make us forget that he sacri- 
fices captive strangers upon the altar. Goethe 
accepted the old story, but he has refined the char- 
acter of Thoas ; hence, while it is assumed that 
the King acts barbarously, he speaks nobly. 

May there not be some clashing of this sort in 
our " Hamlet," since the play is based upon a crude 
old tale of blood and revenge ? Shakespeare was 
also embarrassed by the fact that the theatre-going 
public had already a definite conception of the 
story of the Prince and of his character. 

As already indicated, an account of the life of 
Hamlet appeared in a French prose work by one 
Belleforest, " Histoires Tragiques," and was writ- 
ten in 1570. The Elizabethan "Hamlet" is be- 
lieved to be based upon this form of the story. The 
tale is known to go back as far as the " Historia 
Danica" of Saxo Grammaticus, who wrote about 
1200. In Belleforest, Hamlet kills his uncle, and 
then goes to England, whence he returns "with 
two wives." 

Beginning with 1589 we find numerous allusions 
to an English play upon the story of Hamlet. 
This work has been lost. It seems to have been a 
tragedy of blood and vengeance. Unlike the story 
in Belleforest, but like that in Shakespeare, this 
tragedy had a ghost. The cry of the Ghost in this 



TRACES OF AN OLDER PLAY 35 

lost play, " Hamlet, revenge ! " is often quoted by- 
writers of the time. A few students have conjec- 
tured that this drama was a youthful production of 
Shakespeare ; a German scholar, Sarrazin, is con- 
fident that Thomas Kyd was its author. 1 The im- 
portance for us of this vanished play consists in 
the proof which it furnishes that a distinct concep- 
tion of the character of Hamlet and of the story of 
his life had possession of the stage before Shake- 
speare took up the subject. Dr. Latham goes so 
far as to say that " long before it came under the 
cognizance of Shakespeare," the character of Ham- 
let was " as strongly stamped and stereotyped " as 
were those of Medea, Orestes, and Achilles upon 
the Greek stage. As a practical application of this 
doctrine, he argues that " the pretendedness " of 
Hamlet's madness is as unquestionable "as the 
reality of that of Orestes." 

In 1603 was published the first version of our 
"Hamlet," the so-called First Quarto. This is 
somewhat more than half as long as the later play. 
The outline of the action is substantially the same 
as that which we know ; but the Queen, as already 
indicated, repents of her sin, and offers to assist 
Hamlet in securing revenge. Strangely enough, 
the First Quarto has been considered by some com- 
petent critics to be better fitted for stage presenta- 
tion than the later versions. 

The texts of the Second Quarto of 1604 and of 
the First Folio of 1623 are for the most part the 

1 Thomas Kyd und sein Kreis, Berlin, 1892. 



36 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

same ; these give the play in the form with w hich 
we are all familiar. 1 As compared with the I *irst 
Quarto, these versions make only slight changes .in 
the story ; but the astonishing fullness of thougHt 
and poetry which distinguishes this play appears 
for the first time in the Second Quarto. 

That the gradual development of this drama into 
its present form might easily give rise to contra- 
dictions in the final text will be clear if we look 
for a moment, just by way of illustration, at the 
question of Hamlet's age. 

There is nothing in the First Quarto which re- 
quires us to believe that "young Hamlet" is over 
nineteen or twenty years of age. The skull of 
Yorick, who played with him when he was a child, 
has been in the ground only " this dozen year." 
In the later text we learn that Hamlet's age is 
thirty (V. i. 153-77), and that Yorick's skull 
has " lain in the earth three and twenty years." 
In spite of this, however, many things remain in the 
accepted text which seem to make Hamlet a youth 
of not more than twenty : among these are his wish 
to return as a student to Wittenberg, the election 
of Claudius as king without the bestowal of any 
consideration upon the claim of Hamlet, the prob- 
able age of his mother when she yields to guilty 
passion, and especially the language of Laertes 
when he speaks to Ophelia concerning the Prince. 
Mr. Wilson Barrett, the actor, thinks that the age 

1 Vietor's parallel edition of the three texts of the play is 
heartily commended (Marburg 1 , 1891). 



TRACES OF AN OLDER PLAY 37 

was given as thirty for the convenience of some 
actor who was " incapable of looking the youth- 
ful prince." x Many scholars, however, accept on 
this point the opinion expressed by Dr. Furni- 
vall: 2 — 

" I look on it as certain, that when Shakespeare be- 
gan the play [and while he was composing the version 
preserved for us in the First Quarto], he conceivd Ham- 
let as quite a young man [following the accepted story 
and the tradition of the stage]. But as the play grew, 
as greater weight of reflection, of insight into charac- 
ter, of knowledge of life, &c, were wanted, Shakespeare 
necessarily and naturally made Hamlet a formd man ; 
and, by the time that he got to the Grave-diggers' scene 
[in writing the version of the Second Quarto], told us 
the Prince was thirty, — the right age for him then. 
. . . The two parts of the play are inconsistent on this 
main point in Hamlet's state." 3 

Perhaps it ought to be said here that several 
other minor discrepancies have been noted in the 
play. It is impossible, for example, that Horatio 
has been at Elsinore some two months before he 
meets Hamlet (I. ii. 138, 161-76). Again, it is 
four months after the death of Hamlet's father 
when the mad Ophelia sports with wild flowers. 
Did the dead king take a nap in a Danish orchard 
in mid-winter ? and was it his " custom always of 
the afternoon " ? The fact that Hamlet knows at 

1 Lippincotfs Magazine, vol. xlv. 

2 The writer of this article is responsible for the passages in 
brackets : these bring* out more explicitly what is supposed to be 
the thoug-ht of Dr. Furnivall. 

3 Furness, vol. i. p. 391. 



38 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

the close of Act III. that he is to be sent to Eng- 
land (III. iv. 200) is very puzzling. The King has 
only just decided upon that course (III. i. 177 
and III. iii. 4, fall upon the same day), and there 
seems to have been no opportunity for the hero to 
get this information. Two months after Laertes 
left home Hamlet says, " I have of late . . . for- 
gone all custom of exercises " (II. ii. 306-8) ; about 
ten days or two weeks later, according to Daniel's 
estimate of the time, the Prince declares to Hora- 
tio, while speaking of the proposed fencing-bout, 
" Since he [Laertes] went into France, I have 
been in continual practice " (V. ii. 220-1). It is 
hard to see, also, at the beginning of Act V., why 
Horatio has told Hamlet nothing about the fate of 
Ophelia. It is hard to understand this, whether we 
suppose that Hamlet has inquired about her, or 
that he has not. Probably the only explanation 
is that it best suits the purpose of the dramatist 
to have the hero learn of Ophelia's death in the 
manner represented in the play. 

The explanation of Dr. Furnivall concerning the 
age of the hero suggests that some more central 
difficulties in the play may perhaps be explained 
in a similar way. Are there in the drama as a 
whole unconformable strata ? Sarrazin and others, 
among the Germans, Kenny in England, and Pro- 
fessor March and Mr. John Corbin in this country 
have made use of this method of explanation. 
Perhaps the last-named writer is the one who goes 
farthest. He says : — 



TRACES OF AN OLDER PLAY 39 

" Shakspere's happiest additions to the old tragedy of 
blood were precisely contradictory to its vital structure 
as a drama. Wherever Hamlet is in action his character 
dates back to the lost play: the Shaksperean element 
has to do almost exclusively with the reflective, imagi- 
native, humane traits of his portraiture." 

a When Hamlet is in action he is to be judged by the 
standards of the tragedy of blood and revenge. It is 
only in his speech and manner that the Shaksperean 
conception shines forth. In this fact lies the root of 
most of the disagreements among the modern critics and 
actors." 1 

The fact that the old tragedy delighted its audi- 
ences with these horrors may well be the main 
reason why the six principal characters, together 
with Eosencrantz and Guildenstern, are killed dur- 
ing the play, — five of them, if we include Polo- 
nius, meeting death before our eyes. The easy 
fashion in which the Prince consigns to destruction 
his former schoolfellows, Eosencrantz and Guild- 
enstern, may come from the old play. Perhaps the 
difficulty in finding a motive for Hamlet's action 
in pretending madness admits in part a similar 
explanation. In the story as given by Belleforest 
he feigns madness because " perceiving himself to 
be in danger of his life." Victor Hugo interprets 
our play in the same way; but where in the text 
does it appear that this is the motive ? May it not 
be that the feigning of insanity is a feature which 
Shakespeare accepts from the traditional story and 

1 The Elizabethan Hamlet, Scribners, 1895, pp. 49, 84. 



40 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

from the older play, but of which he makes little 
constructive use ? It is noticeable that that portion 
of Act I. Scene v., which follows the entry of 
Horatio and Marcellus, has in the First Quarto 
practically the same form as in the two later texts. 
It may well be that a familiar scene in the lost 
version is here closely followed. 

Now for the bearing of all this upon our main 
topic, the reasons for Hamlet's dilatoriness. The 
above discussion naturally suggests that Shake- 
speare, while retaining the crude story of revenge 
that was fixed in the public mind, gradually deep- 
ened and refined the character of Hamlet until it 
clashed with that story. Conscientious scruples 
against blood-revenge, I admit, are utterly foreign to 
the original tale. In spite of changes and additions, 
it may well be that the dramatist was so hampered 
by the fixed outlines of the accepted story that he 
was prevented from motiving the inactivity of the 
Prince as fully as he could otherwise have done. 
The energetic Hamlet retained from the old play 
accords but badly with the reflective, halting hero 
of a more intellectual age : the new wine bursts 
the old bottles. 

Brandes says, in connection with this topic : — 

" The old legend, with its harsh outlines, its mediaeval 
order of ideas, its heathen groundwork under a varnish 
of dogmatic Catholicism, its assumption of vengeance 
as the unquestionable right, or rather duty, of the indi- 
vidual, did not very readily harmonise with the rich 
lif e of thoughts, dreams, and feelings which Shakespeare 



THE MOUTHPIECE OF SHAKESPEARE 41 

imparted to his hero. There arose a certain discrepancy 
between the central figure and his surroundings. . . . 
But Shakespeare, with his consummate instinct, man- 
aged to find an advantage precisely in this discrepancy, 
and to turn it to account. His Hamlet believes in the 
ghost and — doubts. He accepts the summons to the 
deed of vengeance and — delays. Much of the original- 
ity of the figure, and of the drama as a whole, springs 
almost inevitably from this discrepancy between the 
mediaeval character of the fable and its Renaissance 
hero, who is so deep and many-sided that he has almost 
a modern air." * 

The loss of the pre-Shakespearean " Hamlet " 
makes it impossible to say just how much weight 
should be given to this line of argument. 

V. HAMLET AS THE MOUTHPIECE OF SHAKE- 
SPEARE 

All lovers of Shakespeare must admit the force 
of these words from Kreyssig, a German critic : 
" From the rich troop of his heroes, Shakespeare 
has chosen Hamlet as the exponent, to the spec- 
tators and to posterity, of all that lay nearest to his 
own heart." The American poet-critic, Jones Very, 
speaks of " the tendency of Shakespeare to overact 
this particular part of Hamlet, and thus give it an 
obscurity from too close a connection with his own 
mind." 2 

Though Rumelin goes too far in this particular 
direction, the following words concerning Shake- 

1 William Shakespeare, one-vol. edition, p. 367. 

2 Poems and Essays, p. 62. 



42 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

speare's tendency to make Hamlet his own mouth- 
piece have much force : — 

" We must not fail to see that this use of the legend 
enters into the dramatic subject and into the course of 
the action as a somewhat foreign and disturbing ele- 
ment ; we must perceive that the legend, whose essential 
features the play still keeps, is in itself little fitted for 
the interpolation of an element so subjective and so 
modern." 

Let us look at some specific passages in the play 
that are evidently the personal utterances of Shake- 
speare. The reference to the child-actors, added in 
the First Folio, is clearly a " local hit " ; it comes 
from the dramatist, not from Hamlet and Rosen- 
crantz (II. ii. 353-79). The character of Osric 
is undoubtedly a satire on certain affectations of 
Shakespeare's own day. That Shakespeare himself 
is speaking when Hamlet instructs the players in 
the art of acting seems certain. Though Loening 
defends it ingeniously, the passage has no vital con- 
nection with the plot. The real reason why we 
have the lines is that Shakespeare had some things 
to say concerning the proper carriage, gesture, and 
elocution of an actor ; and no man will ever know 
how much strutting and bellowing the world has 
escaped because of this simple text-book of histri- 
onics, known and read of all men. 

The Sonnets of Shakespeare, in which he " un- 
locked his heart," echo with striking distinctness 
some of the complaints of the melancholy Prince 
of Denmark. The connection is especially marked 



THE MOUTHPIECE OF SHAKESPEARE 43 

between the sixty-sixth Sonnet and some portions 
of the soliloquy beginning " To be or not to be." 

Brandes points out that the following lines of 
the soliloquy just mentioned are " felt and thought 
from below upwards, not from above downwards, 
and that the words are improbable, almost impos- 
sible, in the mouth of the Prince " : 1 — 

" For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, 
The insolence of office, and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes, 
When he himself might his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin ? " 

III. i. 70-6. 

In any performance of " Hamlet," that pearl, the 
Grave-diggers' scene, is sure to be presented (V. i. 
1-240) ; but it has no dramatic justification, — 
that is, the action is in no way advanced. These 
are the deep musings of Shakespeare's own mind 
and heart, and we do not estimate them according 
to their purely dramatic value. 

Our love for this play springs largely from the 
fact that Shakespeare, disregarding strictly dra- 
matic considerations, has given freely to Hamlet 
the charm, the warmth, and the boundlessness of 
his own nature. 

The bearing of this discussion upon our central 

inquiry may be stated as follows : our impression 

of Hamlet's dilatoriness is intensified by his long 

soliloquies and by his abundant comments upon the 

1 William Shakespeare, one-vol. edition, p. 365. 



44 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

various problems of life ; but these utterances are 
in part the personal outpourings of Shakespeare 
himself, not called for by either the plot of the piece 
or the characterization : the hands are the hands 
of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob. 

CONCLUSION 

The Teutonic mind naturally looks upon the por- 
trayal of character as the real purpose of the drama, 
and as " its own excuse." It is probably safe to 
say that Shakespeare has given in " Hamlet " the 
ultimate example of character-portrayal in drama. 
The completeness with which the nature and dis- 
position of the Prince, his entire mental and moral 
being, are put before us is something which we are 
accustomed to find only in the wide-ranging, loosely 
constructed novel, not in the intense, concentrated, 
and sharply limited drama. 

Dramatic criticism is inclined to insist that only 
those characteristics of the hero should be made 
prominent which really influence the course of the 
action ; and that these characteristics should be 
unmistakable. According to this standard "Ham- 
let " is certainly faulty. That the play is marked 
by an excess of monologue seems to be recognized by 
the omission from the First Folio of some of the 
utterances of the hero, including the sermon on 
drunkenness (I. iv. 17-38), and even the power- 
ful soliloquy upon seeing the army of Fortinbras 
(IV. iv. 32-66 ; 11. 9-31 are also omitted). Certain 
features in the management of the action have 



CONCLUSION 45 

also been pronounced by Goethe and others to be 
" extremely faulty." But it is not especially because 
of its defects that the world is not likely to see 
another " Hamlet " : its marvelous excellences are 
a more conclusive reason. None but himself can 
bend the bow of Odysseus. 

Before the reader decides which one of the pos- 
sible reasons for Hamlet's inactivity he will adopt 
in making up his own theory of the play, let him 
ask himself, " Can I not accept a good number of 
them ? " In many cases they are not exclusive and 
contradictory, but should be looked upon as com- 
plementary and harmonious. The large number 
of these reasons of itself makes it clear why there 
are so many opinions concerning the character of 
the hero. One critic accents one motive ; another, 
another. Superficially their views may seem to 
themselves and others to be irreconcilable, while 
at bottom they may be largely at one. 

Not only is it hardly possible for two critics to 
agree upon the same interpretation of the play ; 
but one cannot altogether agree with himself for 
two successive readings. The considerations in- 
volved are so numerous that the reader is hardly 
able to give due weight to all of them ; it is 
inevitable that he should be somewhat at the mercy 
of his mood. 

At my present stage of development, my own 
theory as to the reasons for Hamlet's dilatoriness 
is somewhat as follows : I accept the first three 
grounds for Hamlet's delay indicated under th*" 



46 THE VIEWS ABOUT HAMLET 

first general division of this paper, namely : an 
excessive tendency to reflection, weakness of will, 
and especially a melancholy temperament and ex- 
treme sensitiveness. I find myself varying in the 
degree of emphasis which I give to these different 
factors, but I am not inclined to look upon the 
hero's excessive tendency to reflection as something 
really primary and causative. Under the second 
general division of the paper, I accent Hamlet's 
conscientious scruples against blood-revenge, and 
his natural aversion to killing the King. It seems 
to me entirely reasonable and natural that all these 
qualities should be associated in one person. I be- 
lieve further that Shakespeare was hampered in 
some measure by the fixed outlines of the accepted 
version of the old story ; also that the fact that the 
dramatist expresses freely through the mouth of 
the Prince his own thoughts and feelings intensi- 
fies the impression of weakness and dilatoriness 
which Hamlet makes upon us. I give less promi- 
nence to the other considerations that have been 
mentioned, though I look upon some of them as 
having a measure of force. I oppose the purely 
objective explanation of Hamlet's delay advocated 
by Werder and some others. 

The problem of Hamlet ! Who shall altogether 
solve it ? Even while we cherish the vain hope of 
doing this, some passage from the play comes to 
mind which accords but poorly with our elabo- 
rate solution. And then a princely form and care- 
vorn face rise up before us, and the pale lips say 



CONCLUSION 47 

haughtily : " Why, look you now, how unworthy 
a thing you make of me ! You would play upon 
me : you would seem to know my stops : you would 
sound me from my lowest note to the top of my 
compass : you would pluck out the heart of my 
mystery ! " 



THE AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN 
"VANITY FAIR" 









THE AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN 
"VANITY FAIR" 

In speaking of the novels of Anthony Trollope, 
a few years ago, Mr. Howells praised that writer's 
" simple honesty and instinctive truth." Neverthe- 
less, the critic tells us, Trollope " was so warped 
from a wholesome ideal as to wish at times to be 
like the caricaturist Thackeray, and to stand about 
in his scene, talking it over with his hands in his 
pockets, interrupting the action, and spoiling the 
illusion in which alone the truth of art resides." * 

Let us look for a time at the feature of Thack- 
eray's art here referred to as it appears in " Vanity 
Fair." What shall we say of his frequent turning 
aside from his tale to grieve or to jest over human 
folly, to teach or to preach concerning man and 
life? 

So far as there is any " body of doctrine " con- 
cerning the art of fiction, this practice is looked 
upon as a mistake. Aristotle, who wrote, as Mr. 
Bliss Perry has said, " with one eye on Kipling 
and Hardy," discusses in his " Poetics " just this 
same art of fiction. The ancient critic praises 
Homer as " the only poet who appreciates the part 
he should take himself," and tells us that the poet 
1 Criticism and Fiction, p. 75. 



52 AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 

in his own person should speak as little as pos- 
sible. 

Thus the father of literary criticism and Mr. 
Howells, a living practitioner, are at one in this 
matter. For even old Mr. Osborne in "Vanity- 
Fair," who " called kicking a footman down stairs 
a hint to the latter to leave his service," would 
find no difficulty in inferring from the passage al- 
ready quoted the opinion of Mr. Howells concern- 
ing comments by the author in a work of fiction. 

A teacher and novelist of our own day puts the 
matter more formally in these words : 2 " In a nar- 
rative the conditions are : first, that the story shall 
be told in a dramatic, straightforward way ; sec- 
ondly, that the characters shall reveal themselves 
wholly in action, which is done by dialogue and brief 
incidental descriptions on the part of the author. 
There should never be a general application of bits 
of analysis necessary to present individual actors. 
A moral should never be directly inculcated." 

The simplest and the commonest way in which 
Thackeray turns aside from his story is by uttering 
in his own person some general truth suggested 
by a particular situation or by the general course 
of events. For example : — 

" About their complaints and their doctors do ladies * 
ever tire of talking to each other ? " (Vanity Fair, 
XXV.) 

u When women are brooding over their children, or 

1 Mary Harriott Norris, in a note to her school edition of Silas 
Marner. 



AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 53 

busied in a sick-room, who has not seen in their faces 
those sweet angelic beams of love and pity ? " (LXI.) 
" In this vast town one has not the time to go and seek 
one's friends ; if they drop out of the rank they dis- 
appear, and we march on without them. Who is ever 
missed in Vanity Fair ? " (LXI.) 

There are few if any story-tellers who do not 
indulge in short generalizations comparable to those 
just quoted. Perhaps Jane Austen, with her in- 
stinctive rightness of artistic method, is as free from 
them as any English novelist. The present writer 
has been unable to find a single one in " Pride and 
Prejudice." It is the worldly-wise Charlotte Lucas, 
and not Miss Austen, who tells us in that book that 
" in nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show 
more affection than she feels," and that " happiness 
in marriage is entirely a matter of chance." In 
" Mansfield Park," " Emma," and " Persuasion," 
this author occasionally allows herself to generalize ; 
and her few comments of this sort are very spicy, 
very Jane-y, as these specimens will show : — 

" . . . that favoring something which everybody who 
shuts their eyes while they look, or their understandings 
while they reason, feels the comfort of." (Mansfield 
Park, XL) 

" Human nature is so well disposed towards those who 
are in interesting situations, that a young person who 
either marries or dies is sure of being kindly spoken of." 
(Emma, XXII.) 

Mr. Howells, whom we have found very severe 
toward the more obtrusive forms of author's com- 



54 AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 

ment, is himself somewhat fond of dispensing wis- 
dom in the form of brief generalizations. 

" As they walked they sent those quivers and thrills 
over their thin coats which horses can give at will." 
(The Quality of Mercy, I.) 

" She bent to look over the book with him, and he felt 
the ungovernable thrill at being near the beauty of a 
woman's face which a man never knows whether to be 
ashamed of or glad of, but which he cannot help feel- 
ing." (Ibid. XII.) 

" We are each of us good for only a certain degree 
of advance in opinion ; few men are indefinitely pro- 
gressive." (Ibid. VII.) 

Is it worth while to treat seriously these morsels 
of proffered wisdom ? Suppose that the author does 
glance at a larger truth suggested by a character 
or a situation. Variety is the spice of fiction, as of 
life ; and at any rate, the law of fiction, like other 
law, cares not for trifles. 

It must be granted that generalizations coming 
in strictly explanatory passages may be either neces- 
sary or helpful in making important matters clear 
to the reader. Each case, also, should stand on its 
own merits ; it would be impossible in a few words 
successfully to generalize about generalizing. We 
admit, moreover, that brief generalities of the 
kind that we have quoted above may constitute 
but a slight element in an elaborate novel. Yet it 
is in them that we can isolate and study in its sim- 
plest form that bacillus commentarius which infects 
English fiction, and which has done much to lessen 



AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 55 

its artistic quality. A fundamental question is, 
Has the novelist some things to tell us that are 
better than his story, and separable from it? We 
think not. If any novel-reader is so lacking in com- 
mon observation and so deficient in generalizing 
power as to be unable to infer that the quivers and 
thrills which run over the coats of a particular 
pair of horses are something " which horses can 
give at will," then let him die in his sins. It mat- 
ters not. For the author to play the showman, to 
draw the morals and state all the suggested truths 
for his reader, seems too much like taking away 
from him his inalienable right to chew his food. 
And however spicy, novel, and valuable these nug- 
gets of wisdom may be, is it well that they should 
interrupt the narrative itself? Is the writer's phi- 
losophy a better thing than his story ? And even if 
it be better, should it be separated from the story ? 
Will that philosophy be more effectively set forth 
in the abstract, or in a living form ? It seems more 
in accordance with the nature of a work of fiction, 
more plainly a fulfillment of the law of its being, 
and decidedly more effective, that the truth there 
presented shall take on flesh ; that without a par- 
able, or apart from his parable, the novelist shall 
not speak unto us. 

Brief generalizations by the author are not a 
grave matter. But the novelist who yields to the 
itching desire to display his wisdom in philosophi- 
cal form is not likely to content himself long with 
tiny maxims slipped in at the joints of the story. 



56 AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 

A single sentence is not enough. Little essays ap- 
pear. The pleasure that the writer finds in airing 
his own reflections in his own person easily tempts 
him at times to steal from his own characters choice 
opportunities for commenting upon interesting 
subjects. The persons of the comedy are hushed 
up and driven off the stage, while the dramatist 
comes forward and discourses about experiences 
like the one just witnessed in the play, or upon 
some topic suggested thereby. A passage in Jane 
Austen's " Persuasion " concerning the beauties of 
Lyme, and one in " Northanger Abbey " in praise 
of novels, are illustrations of this. Each of these 
comes from the author in her own person, not from 
the actors in the story. Thackeray is sometimes 
guilty in " Vanity Fair " of thus stealing from his 
own characters. We learn " that Miss Sharp had 
no kind parent to arrange these delicate matters 
for her, and that if she did not get a husband for 
herself, there was no one else in the wide world who 
would take the trouble off her hands." (HI.) We 
are then treated to a spicy little disquisition upon 
some of the common methods of husband-hunting of 
which Miss Sharp was unable to make use. But for 
this essay, Rebecca's own thoughts and feelings at 
this interesting point would probably have been set 
forth more sharply and fully. 

In another place, instead of the raptures of 
Thackeray over " that beautiful Rhin eland " we 
ought to have been given those of the impression- 
able Mrs. Amelia Osborne. As it is now, Amelia 



AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 57 

sketches the scenery, but is not permitted to praise 
it. Thackeray will not even allow Joseph Sedley, 
just returned from India, to eulogize good porter. 
Surely, if Jos is to talk at all, here is his chance. 
But no : — 

" The landlord said it did his eyes good to see Mr. 
Sedley take off his first pint of porter. If I had time and 
dared to enter into digressions, I would write a chap- 
ter about that first pint of porter drunk upon Eng- 
lish ground. Ah, how good it is ! It is worth while to 
leave home for a year, just to enjoy that one draught.' J 
(LVIIL) 

li it be allowable to speak thus freely of a novel- 
ist to whom we are all indebted, one may say that 
the decline and fall of George Eliot well illustrates 
the danger which threatens the writer of fiction who 
indulges in comment. In her successive novels the 
inserted sermons and dissertations kept growing 
longer and more numerous, until at last the im- 
pertinent story was dropped out altogether, and the 
pure juice of the grape " with no allaying Thames " 
was bestowed upon us in " The Impressions of 
Theophrastus Such." But in the true scale of lit- 
erary values, how many of " Such " are equivalent 
to one " Adam Bede " ? 

The headings of the chapters in " Vanity Fair " 
numbered thirty-six and thirty-seven are : " How 
to Live Well on Nothing a Year " and " The Sub- 
ject Continued." It is clear that the true theme 
of this part of the book is, — how Becky and 
Eawdon actually did live on nothing a year. In 



58 AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 

these two chapters Thackeray very naturally wan- 
ders off at times in pursuit of the more general 
subject suggested by his title. 

Sometimes the little essays pass into preaching, 
into moral exhortation ; and sometimes the entire 
comment is a brief homily. In the first of the fol- 
lowing cases the author carefully legitimates his 
sermon by passing it through the mind of his char- 
acter. 

" It may, perhaps, have struck her that to have been 
honest and humble, to have done her duty, and to have 
marched straight forward on her way, would have 
brought her as near happiness as that path by which 
she was striving to attain it. But, — just as the children 
at Queen's Crawley went round the room where the 
body of their father lay ; — if ever Becky had these 
thoughts, she was accustomed to walk round them, and 
not look in." (XLI.) 

Contrast with this the following : — 

" Sick-bed homilies and pious reflections are, to be 
sure, out of place in mere story-books, and we are not 
going (after the fashion of some novelists of the present 
day) to cajole the public into a sermon, when it is only 
a comedy that the reader pays his money to witness. 
But, without preaching, the truth may surely be borne 
in mind, that the bustle, and triumph, and laughter, 
and gayety which Vanity Fair exhibits in public, do 
not always pursue the performer into private life, and 
that the most dreary depression of spirits and dismal 
repentances sometimes overcome him." Etc. (XIX.) 

Here Thackeray puts forth a sermon as Mr. 



AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 59 

Joseph Jefferson's Rip Van Winkle takes in 
spirits, — after first declaring flatly that he won't. 

The personal utterances of a novelist may be 
made very attractive if they have the charm of 
humor and a winning style. Thackeray gives to his 
comments a spice and variety which mollify the 
sternest critic. It is largely this infinite diversity 
and deftness of handling which so charm his read- 
ers that they are willing to defend this feature of 
his novels against all attacks whatever. 

To address remarks directly to a character in 
the story is a naive device, well known to Chaucer, 
that may be defended as enhancing the illusion, if 
used in moderation. " Oh, thou poor panting little 
soul ! " — says our author to Amelia — " The very 
finest tree in the whole forest, with the straightest 
stem, and the strongest arms, and the thickest 
foliage, wherein you choose to build and coo, may 
be marked, for what you know, and may be down 
with a crash ere long." (XIII.) Again : " Poor 
simple lady, tender and weak — how are you to 
battle with the struggling violent world?" (L.) 

Thackeray is very fond of illustrating a point 
by telling a brief parallel anecdote. The fact that 
the comment takes the narrative form lessens the 
sense of interruption ; we are still listening to a 
story, even though it be " another story." When 
the quarrel between George Osborne and his father 
improved the pecuniary prospects of the Osborne 
sisters, and caused them to " rise not a little in 
their own esteem," the following anecdote, with 



60 AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 

some intrusion of the author's personality, effec- 
tively sets forth and interprets the whole situation : 

" It was but this present morning, as he rode on the 
omnibus from Richmond ; while it changed horses, this 
present chronicler, being on the roof, marked three 
little children playing in a puddle below, very dirty, and 
friendly, and happy. To these three presently came an- 
other little one. ' Polly,'' says she, ' your sister 's got a 
penny.' At which the children got up from the puddle 
instantly, and ran off to pay their court to Peggy. And 
as the omnibus drove off I saw Peggy with the infan- 
tine procession at her tail, marching with great dignity 
towards the stall of a neighboring lollipop-woman." 
(XXIII.) 

The emotional outbursts of the author often have 
a simplicity and spontaneity that take away in 
whole or in part the impression that one is reading 
a comment. " By heavens it is pitiful, the bootless 
love of women for children in Vanity Fair." (L.) 
" O you poor secret martyrs and victims, whose 
life is a torture, who are stretched on racks in your 
bedrooms, and who lay your heads down on the 
block daily at the drawing-room table ; every man 
who watches your pains, or peers into those dark 
places where the torture is administered to you, 
must pity you — and — and thank God that he 
has a beard." (LVII.) 

A remark or complaint is sometimes represented 
as coming from a reader of the story, from " Jones," 
or " some unknown correspondent," or " some carp- 
ing reader," etc. At times the reader is directly 






AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 61 

addressed; and perhaps no form of comment is 
more skillfully individualized and diversified than 
this. The author directs his remarks to " you," or 
to " you the reader," " brother reader," " my dear 
and civilized reader," "fair young reader," "my 
son," "friend," "my friend," "mesdames,"" ladies," 
"Miss Smith," "my dear Miss Bullock." It may 
be questioned whether any little sermon in the 
book is more effective than one which is addressed 
to the reader. It is suggested by the illness of old 
Miss Crawley : " Picture to yourself, oh fair young 
reader, a worldly, selfish, graceless, thankless, reli- 
gionless old woman, writhing in pain and fear, and 
without her wig. Picture her to yourself, and ere 
you be old, learn to love and pray." (XIV.) 

Thackeray has many references to the necessary 
assumption that the author is all-wise regarding 
the story; and he often jokes about his own omnis- 
cience. " For novelists have the privilege of know- 
ing everything." (III.) "If, a few pages back, 
the present writer claimed thfe privilege of peeping 
into Miss Amelia Sedley's bedroom, and under- 
standing with the omniscience of the novelist all 
the gentle pains and passions which were tossing 
upon that innocent pillow, why should he not de- 
clare himself to be Rebecca's confidant too, mas- 
ter of her secrets, and seal-keeper of that young 
woman's conscience?" (XV.) "In the course of 
the evening Rawdon got a little family-note from 
his wife, which ... we had the good luck to read 
over Rebecca's shoulder." (XXV.) 



62 AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 

Thackeray often pretends to be in some doubt 
as to the true state of affairs in his story. In these 
cases the real situation is usually made clear to the 
reader, though a measure of uncertainty sometimes 
remains. " At this, I don't know in the least for 
what reason, Mrs. Sedley looked at her husband 
and laughed." (IV.) " Why was she so violently 
agitated at Dobbin's request ? This can never be 
known." (XXIII.) " I protest it is quite shame- 
ful in the world to abuse a simple creature, as 
people of her time abuse Becky, and I warn the 
public against believing one-tenth of the stories 
against her." (LI.) 

As to the question of Rebecca's guilt in her con- 
nection with Lord Steyne, Thackeray pleads igno- 
rance. " Was she guilty or not ? She said not ; 
but who could tell what was truth which came from 
those lips ; or if that corrupt heart was in this 
case pure?" (LIII.) This is the only refusal to 
enlighten us regarding a matter that is important 
for the story. 

Anthony Trollope, Thackeray's pupil, sometimes 
makes exasperating remarks about his narrative as 
an unreal fabrication which he can control at will. 
In marked contrast with this, " Vanity Fair " has 
a number of references to the story as a transcript 
from real life, and to the characters as flesh-and- 
blood beings personally known to the author. 
These touches are especially frequent in the chap- 
ter entitled " Am Rhein." 

A fairly conclusive argument regarding the whole 



AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 63 

subject of author's comment in this story is the fact 
that Thackeray's finest writing in " Vanity Fair " 
itself refutes this practice. When at his highest 
pitch of narrative inspiration, he has small desire 
to interrupt his story or ramble from it. The best 
opportunities for indulging in comment are then 
felt to be still better opportunities for doing without 
it, for letting the story make its own impression. 

How much better than comment is the following 
conversation, just after Dobbin has bought back 
Amelia's piano for her at the auction ! 

" ' I wish we could have afforded some of the plate, 
Rawdon,' the wife continued sentimentally. ' Five- 
and-twenty guineas was monstrously dear for that little 
piano. We chose it at Broadwood's for Amelia, when 
she came from school. It only cost five-and-thirty 
then.' 

" ' What d'ye-call 'em — Osborne, will cry off now, I 
suppose, since the family is smashed. How cut up your 
pretty little friend will be ; hey, Becky ? ' 

" ' I dare say she '11 recover it,' Becky said, with a 
smile — and they drove on and talked about something 
else." (XVII.) 

Some one may suggest that the effectiveness of 
the purely objective method in the extract just 
read comes in part from the contrast with those 
passages in the book in which Thackeray lingers 
to expatiate upon the significance of an incident 
or situation. But is it not true, rather, that the 
most marked quality of the brief dialogue just 
cited is the essential rightness and power of its 
artistic method ? 



64 AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 

It seems hardly fair to say that Thackeray in 
this case omits the sermon which he might have 
given us. The sermon is not preached here, but it 
is not therefore omitted. It is presented through 
dialogue and action, and that is more effective than 
preaching. The mirror is here held up to nature ; 
and we perceive life and homily, action and moral, 
in one indivisible whole. This little scene from 
real life is crammed with meaning, with lesson; 
and the meaning is vivid with life. 

Even Thackeray's choicest remarks would have 
weakened any one of the following passages : — 

" ' Here, you little beggars/ Dobbin said, giving some 
sixpences amongst them, and then went off by himself 
through the rain. It was all over. They were married, 
and happy, he prayed God. Never since he was a boy 
had he felt so miserable and so lonely. He longed with 
a heart-sick yearning for the first few days to be over, 
that he might see her again." (XXII.) 

" Maria was bound, by superior pride and great care 
in the composition of her visiting-book, to make up for 
the defects of birth ; and felt it her duty to see her 
father and sister as little as possible." (XLII.) 

" Osborne partially regained cognizance ; but never 
could speak again, though he tried dreadfully once or 
twice, and in four days he died. The doctors went down, 
and the undertaker's men went up the stairs ; and all 
the shutters were shut towards the garden in Russell 
Square. Bullock rushed from the City in a hurry. 
1 .How much money had he left to that boy ? — not half, 
surely ? Surely share and share alike between the 
three ? ' It was an agitating moment." (LXI.) 






AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 65 

Among the strongest chapters of the book are, — 
that " In Which Mr. Osborne Takes Down the 
Family Bible," the one about Brussels and the 
great ball, and that " In Which Jos Takes Flight, 
and the War is Brought to a Close." The first 
two of these contain each a single brief generaliza- 
tion ; in the third there are a few sentences of 
speculation as to whether Waterloo is likely to 
beget future battles between " two high-spirited 
nations." With these exceptions there is no com- 
ment ; and the last chapter mentioned closes with 
that triumph of artistic reticence : — 

" No more firing was heard at Brussels — the pursuit 
rolled miles away. Darkness came down on the field 
and city : and Amelia was praying for George, who 
was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his 
heart." (XXXII.) 

The last five chapters of the book, nearly one 
tenth of the whole story, are almost entirely free 
from comment. The most marked instance of a 
personal utterance by the author is the passage 
in which Thackeray carefully explains that " the 
fashion at present prevailing " compels him to 
pass over " with lightness and delicacy " a portion 
of Rebecca's history. 

A natural division of the story begins near the 
middle of the fifty-first chapter, where we learn 
that " the amiable amusement of acting charades " 
had been brought in from France. This general 
section of the book may be considered to close 
with the establishment of Colonel Rawdon Craw- 



66 AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 

ley as governor of Coventry Island. The central 
feature of this long portion of the narrative is the 
personal encounter between Rawdon and Lord 
Steyne. Throughout this portion of the novel the 
author is at his best. Some of the most attractive 
opportunities for comment occur, as enticing as 
any in the book, but they do not tempt him. His 
story is the best thing and the only thing that he 
has to tell us. Old Marshal Blucher never obeyed 
more heartily the command, " Forward ! forward ! " 
Here Thackeray himself shows unto us the more 
excellent way. 

Undoubtedly the approval or condemnation of 
author's comment is in some degree a matter of 
temperament. To a mind of a certain type it is nat- 
ural, almost instinctive, to observe the laws of the 
material with which one is working, and to adhere 
to the art-form which has been chosen, to per- 
ceive and respect the evident rules of the game. 
Such a person knows, with Goethe, that " It is 
working within limits that shows the master " ; 
he is glad to be free from " the weight of too much 
liberty." He will not begin an ostensible narrative, 
and then interrupt it constantly to indulge in per- 
sonal outpourings. He will look upon this as off- 
side play. An author of a different mental consti- 
tution, when writing a so-called novel, will make 
the work fairly drip with his personal feelings and 
opinions. Such an one will not understand Poe's 
demand that a novelist shall not scatter over his 
pages "at random a profusion of rich thought," 



AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 67 

but shall secure by " unremitting toil and patient 
elaboration . . . the beauty of Unity, Totality, 
Truth." 

The contrast between these two types of mind is 
probably something permanent. It is partially and 
imperfectly represented by various pairs of opposed 
terms, such as classicism and romanticism, unity 
and variety, the excellence of the whole and the 
interest of the part. 

There is also a national as well as an individual 
temperament to be considered. M. Brunetiere tells 
us that English literature, as compared with the 
literature of France, is individualistic, marked by 
a passion for self-expression. He points out the 
abundance, diversity, and richness of English lyric 
poetry. This personal quality invades our fiction, 
and here it does not usually disturb even the 
well-educated English reader. The debate about 
author's comment will seem to him parallel to the 
question whether one should drink his coffee with 
or without sugar. Both are matters of taste, — - 
" of mere taste," as he would probably express it. 
As a nation we have not much appreciation for 
" structural unity pervading all the elements of a 
composition, from the largest to the smallest." 

Of course, the world of readers will always be 
glad to welcome such novels as those of Thackeray. 
Gold of this kind enriches us all, and the least 
we can do is to be grateful. But it is surely al- 
lowable to point out that these works exemplify 
both a more excellent way of story-telling and one 



68 AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 

that is less admirable ; that they give us Thack- 
eray both at his best and at something less than 
his best. 

No attempt has been made in this paper to cite 
authorities ; but in the Introduction to a recent 
edition of " Henry Esmond," edited by Professor 
W. L. Phelps, there are some interesting words 
that illuminate our present topic : — 

" It is difficult to avoid superlatives in talking about 
' Esmond.' It seems to be not only the best book Thack- 
eray ever wrote, but the best historical romance in the 
English language. Indeed, many intelligent critics re- 
gard it as the finest work of fiction ever written by an 
Englishman. It is better than Thackeray's other books, 
because the noble style is so splendidly sustained ; be- 
cause the characters are so impossible to forget; and 
because it is so perfect a work of art, being fortunately 
free from the eternal preaching and sentimental foot- 
notes that mar the text of his other books. Its artistic 
perfection may be partially accounted for by the fol- 
lowing reasons : the story is told in the first person, 
a method that adds vividness to the narrative ; again, 
as the hero, and not the author is talking, Thackeray 
was compelled to omit the introduction of his own phi- 
losophy of life ; the publication in book form necessi- 
tated greater unity and coherence ; and the small size 
of the work, when compared with his other famous 
novels, was a distinct gain in the same direction, for 
novelists, like petitioners, are not heard for their much 
speaking." 

Even if the strictures which have here been made 
upon " Vanity Fair " be accepted as sound, they 



AUTHOR'S COMMENT IN VANITY FAIR 69 

detract little from its essential greatness. A work 
of art lives by its positive power. In all that con- 
cerns the weightier matters of the law of fiction, 
" Vanity Fair " will always be a delight to readers 
and a model to writers. 



STUDIES IN MACBETH 



STUDIES IN MACBETH i 

I. ONE PHASE OF MACBETH' S CHARACTER 

There is one person in the world of Shakespeare 
whose utterances are especially marked by the fine 
charm of true poetry. At the close of many of his 
speeches we are compelled to stop our reading to 
enjoy the musical, imaginative language. Our sym- 
pathy goes out instinctively to this instinctive poet. 
And this poet is that bloody and ever bloodier vil- 
lain, the remorseless committer of murder upon 
murder, Macbeth. 

In the tragedy of " Macbeth " two streams are ever 
flowing, — an unforced stream of exquisite poesy, 
and a stream of innocent blood shed by ruthless 
hands ; and both of them find their source, their 
only and sufficient cause, in the soul of Macbeth. 
May it not be that this strange contrast will help 
us to interpret the character of the man ? 

It is clear that the strains of poetry which fall 
from the lips of Macbeth are entirely natural. The 
moment that he begins to make pretenses, to play 
a part, to say what prudence seems to dictate rather 
than what he feels, he passes from poetry to rheto- 

1 The first three studies are reprinted from The Atlantic Monthly 
for February, 1S92 ; the remainder, from the Publications of the 
Modern Language Association, vol. xi. (1896). 



74 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

ric. True poetry must be genuine, impassioned; 
must spring from sympathy. When Macbeth de- 
picts the appearance of the murdered Duncan, and 
pretends that the unexpected sight overpowered 
him with horror and an irresistible impulse to 
slay the suspected grooms, we hear these hollow 
phrases : — 

" Here lay Duncan, 
His silver skin laced with his golden blood ; 
And his gash'd stabs looked like a breach in nature 
For ruin's wasteful entrance : there, the murderers, 
Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers 
Unmannerly breech'd with gore : who could refrain, 
That had a heart to love, and in that heart 
Courage to make 's love known ? " 

II. iii. 117-124. 

Later in the play, Macbeth speaks to the physician 
concerning the illness of Lady Macbeth. Here his 
words come from the heart, and he says : — 

" Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
And with some sweet oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff 
Which weighs upon the heart ? " 

V. iii. 40-45. 

What relation does this poetical faculty of Mac- 
beth bear to his real character ? Let us analyze 
his first soliloquy, and see what it teaches us (I. vii. 
1-28). He trembles before the danger to himself 
which attends the killing of Duncan, even though 
he is willing to " jump the life to come." Then he 
dwells upon the guilt of the intended murder. He 



A PHASE OF MACBETH' S CHARACTER 75 

is at once the kinsman, the subject, and the host of 
Duncan. 

" Besides, this Duncan 
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against 
The deep damnation of his taking-off." 

I. vii. 16-20. 

There are eight lines more in the same strain. 
Surely now Macbeth will not murder Duncan ! 
Ah, now he surely will. He has looked fairly and 
fully at the crime ; but the honest impulses of his 
heart and the awf ulness of the coming murder have 
been treated as materials for thrilling rhapsodies, 
not as grounds for right decision and for instant 
action. The moment for a hearty, virtuous choice 
of the good is of set purpose given up to sentimen- 
talizing, to poetizing. Such a moment will not re- 
turn ; and whenever his moral instincts shall again 
revolt against the crime, though less vigorously, 
utterance can be given them and their strength can 
be dissipated by the same process of poetizing. 

Macbeth so revels in poetry, in aesthetic har- 
mony, that these things are often more real to him 
than external dangers. At the close of the solilo- 
quy in which he sees the dagger in the air, just be- 
fore the murder of Duncan, he says : — 

" Now o'er the one half -world 
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse 
The curtain'd sleep ; now witchcraft celebrates 
Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder, 
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, 
Whose howl 's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, 



76 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design 
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth, 
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear " — 

Of what? Of detection ? 

— " for fear 
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout, 
And take the present horror from the time, 
Which now suits with it." 

II. i. 49-60. 

The whole situation is such an exquisite harmony 
of gloom, gives to the aesthetic sense of Macbeth 
such keen pleasure, that, even as he goes to mur- 
der Duncan, he fears — that this harmony may be 
disturbed. 

When Macbeth, at a later time, gives his wife 
an intimation of the intended murder of Banquo, 
he cannot deny himself the pleasure of accumu- 
lating about the coming crime a mass of poetic 
detail : — 

" Ere the bat hath flown 
His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons 
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums 
Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done 
A deed of dreadful note." 

III. ii. 40-44. 

The connection between words and deeds in any 
character is easily broken. " 'T is a kind of good 
deed to say well" has been the flattering unction 
that has excused many a speaker from trying to 
live up to his own words. The utterance of fine sen- 
timents easily becomes in any life, not a stimulus, 
but a soporific. Probably every successful preacher 
of righteousness could testify that he is constantly 






A PHASE OF MACBETH' S CHARACTER 77 

tempted in the most subtle ways to take an un- 
lawful part in the world-wide division of labor by 
becoming, in one form or another, a sayer of the 
truth, and not a doer. Macbeth allows his con- 
science to frame his words, partly at least, in order 
that it may disturb him less in his guilty act. 

Lady Macbeth knows not how firm the purpose 
of her husband is. She has heard his fine speeches 
ever since their wooing days, and cannot believe 
that they mean so little as they do in terms of ac- 
tion. She would fain think that the lips that have 
called her " dearest chuck " have behind all their 
utterances the entire personality of the speaker. 
She .knows that Macbeth has ambition, but thinks 
him to be without the moral " illness " that should 
attend it. His profusion of fine words and senti- 
ments misleads her. She does not know — he does 
not fully know — that his compassion and reluc- 
tance are only imaginative, while his ambition is 
real. Lady Macbeth's awful boldness appears to 
her to be forced upon her by the weakness of her 
husband. Though he first resolved upon the mur- 
der (I. iv. 50-53) and broke the enterprise to her 
(I. vii. 48), he is glad to play the part of the timid, 
frightened criminal, whose guilt is due to the mas- 
ter mind that controls him. Imaginary fears, a deep 
shrinking and shuddering of the soul in view of 
crime, are natural to him, and give him a strange, 
thrilling pleasure ; while the fierce energy which 
his supposed remorse arouses in Lady Macbeth 
serves, in his view, both to throw upon her a large 



78 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

share of the guilt and to make the death of Duncan 
more certain. " The weird sisters " are but a per- 
sonification, a dramatizing, of those dark prompt- 
ings which swarm in every soul that is secretly 
inclined to evil. As the sentimentalist sheds tears 
over imaginary suffering, and is unmoved at real 
distress, so Macbeth shakes like a reed in the wind 
before the thought of a murder which " yet is but 
fantastical " ; and then, deliberately, in spite of a 
vibrating sensitiveness which completely deceives 
his wife, and which partially deceives both Macbeth 
himself and the readers of the play, moves on 
" towards his design." 

Like all things else, the death of his wife fur- 
nishes Macbeth a theme for poetry ; and the last 
pleasure that he knows, except the savage delight 
of battle, is the sad joy of singing an exquisite 
death-song to the faithful partner of his guilt. 
Having treated the moral realities of life, its most 
real things, as visionary, as mere materials for 
poetry, all things seem to be but parts of an un- 
real phantasm ; and he would fain persuade him- 
self that they are so. Having emptied life and 
death of every good meaning, he longs to believe 
that they mean nothing. 

" To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 
To the last syllable of recorded time, 
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle ! 
Life 's but a walking* shadow, a poor player 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage 



THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE 79 

And then is heard no more : it is a tale 
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 
Signifying nothing." 

V. v. 19-28. 

1 Alas, Macbeth ! 

II. THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE 

One function of the chorus in the Greek trage- 
dies was to anticipate and announce the terrible 
catastrophe which hangs over some guilty soul. 
The voice of fate, the anger of the offended gods, 
the instincts of the human heart, which could not 
come to utterance through the characters in the 
drama, found in the chorus an impersonal and 
powerful lyric expression. 

The drama of the Greeks had a lyrical origin, 
and made effective use of the song element, which 
it ever retained. But the chorus, with all its 
power, is foreign to the drama ; it is a non-dra- 
matic element. The songs interrupt the action, 
and make it seem unreal. 

There are two situations in " Macbeth " where 
an effect analogous to the most powerful utter- 
ances of the Greek chorus is secured with no 
sacrifice of dramatic reality. The broken moral 
law, the anger of Heaven, the coming doom of the 
guilty, find thrilling expression in the very action 
itself. The acting forms are men, but the voice 
that speaks to us is the voice of God. These two 
situations are the knocking at the gate after the 
murder of Duncan, and the sleep-walking scene. 



80 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

In commenting upon the knocking at the gate, 
the writer cannot hope to add anything to the 
powerful essay of De Quincey which treats of this 
incident ; but he desires to put into every-day lan- 
guage a portion of the thought which has there 
been expressed in more philosophical form. 

We have been conscious during the rapid prepa- 
rations for the murder of Duncan, and the hurried 
conversation which follows it, that the voice of 
conscience has been rudely choked down. Imme- 
diately after the deed, to be sure, Macbeth gives 
poetical utterance to the moral war that is waging 
within him. Two of the sleepers in the castle have 
waked for a moment from uneasy slumber, and 
their drowsy words have stirred the conscience of 
Macbeth. 

" Macb. ... I could not say ' Amen/ 
When they did say ' God bless us ! ' 

Lady M. Consider it not so deeply. 

Macb. But wherefore could not I pronounce ' Amen ' ? 
I had most need of blessing, and ' Amen ' 
Stuck in my throat." 

But words are things to Lady Macbeth, though 
they are not to her husband, and she tells him : — 

" These deeds must not be thought 
After these ways ; so, it will make us mad." 

Still he continues : — 

" Methought I heard a voice cry ' Sleep no more ! 
Macbeth does murder sleep,' the innocent sleep, 
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, 
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, 
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, 
Chief nourisher in life's feast, — 



- THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE 81 

Lady M. What do you mean ? 

Macb. Still it cried ' Sleep no more ! ' to all the house : 
* Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor 
Shall sleep no more ; Macbeth shall sleep no more.' " 

II. ii. 29-43. 

Then Lady Macbeth puts a stop to the utter- 
ances of conscience, and turns her whole attention, 
and in a measure his and ours, to the purely prac- 
tical question, how they shall avoid detection. And 
now the unwelcome voice of conscience flies from 
the breasts which refuse to harbor it. Suddenly, 
through the awful darkness, there comes a sum- 
mons ; the walls cry out. The thoughts, the fears, 
which throng the minds of the guilty pair and of 
the shuddering spectators, find in the knocking at 
the gate a weird, a startling, and an adequate ex- 
pression. This unexpected voice, seeming to come' 
from no fixed place, and having no apparent cause 
except the tragic tension which demands it, stimu- 
lates the imagination almost beyond endurance, 
and heightens the tension that it appears to re- 
lieve. 

Just before the knocking we have been isolated 
from the world, and our intellectual sympathy has 
been given to Macbeth and his wife. Their moral 
sense and ours is for the moment stifled. What 
voice shall call us back to the world of moral law, 
of humane, human living ? 

The knocking at the gate is, first of all, a sharp 
challenge from the outer world of every-day life. 
The morality of that outer world is, indeed, con- 
ventional and imperfect; but the sharp contrast 



82 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

between the normal, every-day life of men, their 
common loves and hates, and the awful crime 
which has just taken place in the little world of 
Macbeth and his wife, is brought home to us with 
a blow by the sudden sound of the knocking. 

It is not only to the world of men and its stand- 
ards, however, that Macbeth, his wife, and we are 
to be called back. Therefore no human voice can 
adequately challenge the guilty pair. Macbeth 
would put on a bold front before any man, and 
our intellectual sympathy would go with him. Any 
human words would fail to express the blackness 
of his guilt; but the knocking, inarticulate, im- 
personal, having no visible cause, — this can be 
the very voice of God, and it is. 

There is something suggestive in the rhythm of 
the mysterious knocking. Rhythm is the expres- 
sion of all life. Our hearts beat out the rhythm 
of our lives. Day and night, in their alternation, 
make up the vast rhythm of our universe. " The 
father of rhythm," says an old seer, " is God." 

To the startled apprehension of Macbeth this 
rhythmic knocking is the throbbing of that moral 
life of the world which he has refused to regard. 
To a cold, unsympathetic reader it may seem an 
absurdity to say it, but Macbeth hears vaguely in 
the knocking the tramp ! tramp ! of those moral 
forces that shall not cease their march until, out of 
the wreck of this world, there shall arise the new 
heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth right- 
eousness. Against these forces, which must win, 



THE SLEEP-WALKING SCENE 83 

Macbeth has set himself. Henceforth the " stars in 
their courses " will fight against him, and he knows 
it. With a sudden burst of hopeless remorse, which 
yet is not true contrition, he cries : — 

" Wake Duncan with thy knocking ! I would thou couldst ! " 

II. ii. 74. 

III. WHY IS THE SLEEP-WALKING SCENE IN PROSE? 

Hudson comments as follows upon the fact that 
this scene, " which is more intensely tragic than 
any other in Shakespeare, is all, except the closing 
speech, written in prose " : — 

"I suspect the matter is too sublime, too austerely 
grand, to admit of anything so artificial as the meas- 
ured language of verse, even though the verse were 
Shakespeare's ; and that the Poet, as from an instinct 
of genius, saw or felt that any attempt to heighten the 
effect by any such arts or charms of delivery would 
unbrace and impair it. . . . Is prose, then, after all, a 
higher form of speech than verse ? There are strains 
in the New Testament which no possible arts of versifi- 
cation could fail to belittle and discrown." * 

The writer cannot help feeling that these very 
suggestive words of the accomplished critic, so far 
as they respect this scene, are somewhat beside the 
point. Words are only a part of the language of 
the drama, and sometimes they are but a small 
part. The plays of Shakespeare, of course, were 
not written, primarily, to be read. It is not the 
diction, the literary form, of this scene which im- 

1 Harvard Shakespeare, vol. xvii. p. 107. 



84 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

presses us ; it is the action, and most of all the 
situation. It is only scattered fragments of speech 
that Lady Macbeth utters. Direct, artless prose, 
moreover, " unbound speech," seems to be the 
natural and necessary form of her utterances. 
Nothing else would befit the unconsciousness of 
slumber. 

What is it that stirs us in this scene? Who is 
acting ? The servant and the doctor are but spec- 
tators, like ourselves, and Lady Macbeth is locked 
in sleep. It is the invisible world of moral reality 
which is made strangely manifest before our eyes. 
Lady Macbeth would not reveal these guilty secrets 
for all the wealth of all the world, but in the awful 
war that is waging in her breast her will is help- 
less. Her feet, her hands, her lips, conspire against 
her. In the presence of the awful, unseen Power 
that controls her poor, divided self, we hush the 
breath and bow the head. 



IV. THE WORDS OF THE SLEEP-WALKING SCENE 

The power of the sleep-walking scene in " Mac- 
beth" is due primarily, as has just been noted, to 
the impressive situation, rather than to the inher- 
ent forcibleness of the broken sentences which are 
spoken by the guilty queen. A strong drama puts 
before us vivid scenes from real life. But in real 
life itself, men are continually masking and posing. 
Not only do we mask and pose to one another, 
we do it to ourselves, and that continually. In this 



THE SLEEP-WALKING SCENE 85 

powerful scene, however, more real than real life, 
the mask falls off, all disguises drop away, and that 
which confronts us is a naked soul. 

But it is also true that the great dramatist has 
given especial potency to the words of this scene. 
The few and seemingly chance utterances of Lady 
Macbeth have an inspired adequacy. The phrases 
cut like a knife, — like the dagger that stabbed Dun- 
can. Note the fitness of the simple words which 
come at the end of the second speech of the sleep- 
ing queen : — 

" Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so 
much blood in him ? " 

When Lady Macbeth first incited her husband 
to make away with Duncan, she willed the death of 
the aged king indeed, but not its shocking acces- 
sories. She thought not of them. When Macbeth 
comes from the murdered one, she urges him : — 

" Go get some water, 
And wash this filthy witness from your hand." 

II. ii. 46-7. 

But not yet does she appreciate the spectacle that 
the inner chamber has in store for her. She starts 
to carry back the daggers, saying, — 

" If he do bleed, 
I '11 gild the faces of the grooms withal ; 
For it must seem their guilt." 

11. 55-7. 

With this thought " If he do bleed " in her mind, 
she enters the chamber, and views the startling 
sight which her eyes are to behold forever. 



86 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

The ordinary peace-loving man is as little pre- 
pared to appreciate what she saw as she was to see 
it. Such an one is unfamiliar with the shedding of 
human blood, knows not how easily and abundantly 
it can flow. And the woman's heart of Lady Mac- 
beth was all unprepared to behold the streaming 
life-blood of the kindly old king, pleading 

" trumpet-tongued, against 
The deep damnation of his taking-off." 

The ghastly vision prints itself indelibly upon 
her brain ; and all her womanly sensibilities receive 
a shock which only the long remorse of coming days 
and the restless torture of coming nights can ade- 
quately measure. 

But she is not the woman to turn back now. 
She dips her hand in the old man's blood and smears 
the faces of the sleeping grooms. The sight, the 
feeling of the warm blood upon her little hand, and 
the odor of it, are strange experiences to her. What 
if she should find herself unable to wash off the 
stain ? What if Heaven should doom her to carry 
the mute witness of guilt about with her forever ? 
At least it seems an endless while before the blood 
is cleansed away. The dreadful memory of all this 
comes out in the troubled dream of the sleep-walker, 
in the frightened cry : — 

" What, will these hands ne'er be clean ? " 

Holmes, in the " Autocrat of the Breakfast 
Table," calls attention to the intimate connection 
between the sense of smell and the memory. Most 



THE SLEEP-WALKING SCENE 87 

persons can testify that certain odors bring back 
the scenes of one's childhood with a vividness which 
is more intense than that caused by any other stim- 
ulus. It is largely the odors of the springtime that 
bind together all the years of the past and the rap- 
ture of the present season. It is, in great measure, 
these pungent odors that make 

" the soul's fresh youth with tender truth 
Still spring" to the springing* grass." 

Maurice Thompson sings : — 

" A breath from tropical borders, 
Just a ripple, flowed into my room, 
And washed my face clean of its sadness, 
Blew my heart into bloom." 

This subtle sense of smell can also summon up 
from the past that which is awful. Listen to the 
guilty queen : — 

" Here 's the smell of the blood still : all the perfumes of Arabia 
will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh ! " 

It is because of such nights of horror that she 
dares not face the kindly shadows which God in- 
tended for repose. She has given command that 
light be by her continually. 

Thus does Lady Macbeth once more live through, 
in restless dreaming, the murder of Duncan. Once 
more by sight and touch and smell has her sensi- 
tive spirit been wounded. Through hearing alone 
among the nobler senses has she received no shock. 
But hark ! again that startling challenge comes 
through the darkness ! 

" There 's knocking at the gate : come, come, come, come, give 
me your hand. What 's done cannot be undone. — To bed, to bed, 
to bed!" 



88 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

V. THE SHOW OP EIGHT KINGS 

Ghostly forms of the eight Scottish kings of 
the house of Stuart — Robert II., Robert III., 
and the six Jameses — are made to appear and 
pass before Macbeth in a dumb show (IV. i.). 
These are the descendants of Banquo, who are to 
rule over Scotland. But why is Mary Stuart 
omitted, who between the reigns of James V. and 
James VI. was the nominal sovereign for a full 
quarter of a century ? To be sure the literal pro- 
mise to Banquo was, " Thou shalt get kings" ; but 
Mary was a sovereign, if not a king ; and what a 
fine fitness would there have been in bringing into 
this drama, though but for a moment, her bewitch- 
ing form ! " Macbeth " is a tragedy of blood, and 
in it eager female beings appear, earthly and un- 
earthly, and tempt to evil deeds. Surely the 
beautiful Queen of Scots would have been a most 
appropriate and suggestive figure in that dumb 
show! 

There is one reason, however, for the omission 
of Mary Stuart which perhaps constitutes a suf- 
ficient explanation. In " A Midsummer-Night's 
Dream " (II. i. 155-64) Shakespeare had paid a 
honeyed compliment to Elizabeth, the great an- 
tagonist of the lovely Stuart queen ; but he was 
now, in 1606, the loyal subject of James I. He 
naturally felt, we may suppose, that it would be 
unpleasant and impolitic to remind his sovereign 
and his audiences of the character and fate of the 



THE WEIRD SISTERS 89 

king's mother, the unhappy Mary. Her interesting 
figure may well have been excluded from the dumb 
show for this reason, irrespective of artistic con- 
siderations. 

VI. THE WEIRD SISTERS 

Strangely enough the word weird has come into 
modern English entirely from its use in "Mac- 
beth." The word occurs six times in this play as 
usually printed : five times in the expression " weird 
sisters " (I. iii. 32 ; I. v. 8 ; II. i. 20 ; III. iv. 133 ; 
IV. i. 136), and once in the phrase " the weird wo- 
men " (III. i. 2). Stranger still, weird does not 
appear at all in the only authoritative text of the 
tragedy, that of the First Folio. In that edition 
the word is weyward in the first three passages 
in the play, and weyard in the last three. It 
was Theobald, the dearest foe of Pope, who saw 
that Shakespeare must have written weird, and 
that this rare word had been changed because of 
" the ignorance of the copyists." Modern editors 
accept the suggestion of Theobald ; but I believe 
that the full force of the word weird is often un- 
apprehended, even by special students of the play. 

In Anglo-Saxon literature, " Wyrd" is the name 
of the personified goddess of fate. Wyrd is " the 
lord of every man." The word is also a common 
noun ; each man has his own wyrd, or destiny. 

In Chaucer we find these lines : — 

" But O, Fortune, executrice of wierdes [fates, destinies]. " 

Troilus and Criseyde, III. 617. 



90 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

u The Wirdes, that we clepen [call] Destinee." 

The Legend of Good Women, 2580 (IX. 19). 

In the second of these lines we have a personi- 
fication, but the conception is of more than one 
Wyrd. 

A passage in the Scotch translation of Vergil's 
iEneid, written about 1513 by Gawin Douglas, 
Bishop of Dunkeld, translates " Parcae " (Book III. 
379) by the phrase " the werd sisteris." 

Shakespeare's source for the story of Macbeth 
was Holinshed's " Chronicles of England, Scotland, 
and Ireland," published in 1577. The evidence of 
this work is decisive in favor of changing wey- 
ward and weyard to weird. The following passage 
from Holinshed will especially concern us : — 

" It fortuned as Makbeth and Banquho iournied to- 
wards Fores, where the king then laie, they went sport- 
ing by the waie togither without other companie, saue 
onelie themselues, passing thorough the woods and fields, 
when suddenlie in the middest of a laund, there met 
them three women in strange and wild apparell, re- 
sembling creatures of elder world, whome when they 
attentiuelie beheld, woondering much at the sight, the 
first of them spake and said ; All haile Makbeth, thane 
of Glammis (for he had latelie entered into that dig- 
nitie and office by the death of his father Smell.) The 
second of them said ; Haile Makbeth thane of Cawder. 
But the third said ; All haile Makbeth that heereafter 
shalt be king of Scotland. 

" Then Banquho ; What manner of women (saith he) 
are you, that seeme so little fauourable vnto me, whereas 
to my fellow heere, besides high offices, ye assigne also 



THE WEIRD SISTERS 91 

the kingdome, appointing f oorth nothing for me at all ? 
Yes (saith the first of them) we promise greater bene- 
fits vnto thee, than vnto him, for he shall reigne in deed, 
but with an vnluckie end : neither shall he leaue anie 
issue behind him to succeed in his place, where contra- 
rilie thou in deed shalt not reigne at all, but of thee 
those shall be borne which shall gouern the Scotish king- 
dome by long order of continuall descent. Herewith the 
foresaid women vanished immediatlie out of their sight. 
This was reputed at the first but some vaine f antasticall 
illusion by Mackbeth and Banquho, insomuch that 
Banquho would call Mackbeth in iest, king of Scot- 
land; and Mackbeth againe would call him in sport 
likewise, the father of manie kings. But afterwards 
the common opinion was, that these women were either 
the weird sisters, that is (as ye would say) the god- 
desses of destinie, or else some nymphs or feiries 
indued with knowledge of prophesie by their necroman- 
ticall science, bicause euerie thing came to passe as they 
had spoken." x 

In the Scandinavian mythology, as it was pre- 
served in Iceland, " Urthr " was the eldest and 
the most prominent of the three Norns, or sister- 
Fates. The loss of an initial w disguises the iden- 
tity of the word with the name of the Anglo-Saxon 
goddess of fate, " Wyrd." Both words are to be 
connected with the Latin vertere, the German 
werden, the Icelandic vertha, and the Anglo-Saxon 
w eorthan . Apparently because the name " Urthr" 
is made from that form of the verbal stem which 
appeared in the plural of the past tense, this god- 
dess came to be looked upon especially as the fate 

1 Furness' Variorum Macbeth, 363-4. Italics not in Holinshed. 



92 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

of the past (des Gewor denes). Professor E. Mogk 1 
thinks that it was bungling word-play (junges, 
islandisches Machiverk) of the twelfth century 
which first gave to the two sisters of Urthr, the 
fates of the present and future, the names " Ver- 
thandi " (pronounced werthandi — die Werdende, 
the goddess of that which is now coming to be — 
from the same verb as " Urthr ") and " Skuld " 
(allied to shall, soil'). The three Norns guard one 
of the three roots of Ygdrasil, the great Ash-tree 
of Existence. Urthr and Verthandi, the Past and 
Present, stretch a web from east to west, " from 
the radiant dawn of life to the glowing sunset, and 
Skuld, the Future, tears it to pieces." 

" The weird sisters," therefore, is a phrase which 
means "the fate sisters," or the Sister Fates. 
Schmidt's explanation of weird, in his " Shake- 
speare-Lexicon," as " subservient to Destiny," fails 
to bring out the dignity of the word both in Holin- 
shed and Shakespeare. The weird sisters are not 
subservient to Destiny ; they are Destiny. 

The commentators have not noticed, apparently, 
that the weird sisters speak to Macbeth and Banquo 
in character, as the Norns of the Past, Present, 
and Future. 2 This fact, which seems to be true in 
a general way of their speeches in Holinshed, comes 
out very clearly in Shakespeare. 

1 Paul's Grundriss der germ. Philologie, i. 1024. 

2 Dowden, however, has this sentence : " When they have 
given him the three hails — as Glamis, as Cawdor, and as King ; 
the hail of the past, of the present, of the future — Macbeth 
starts." Shakspere — His Mind and Art, p. 222. 



THE WEIRD SISTERS 93 

" Enter Macbeth and Banquo. 

Macbeth. So foul and fair a day I have not seen. 

Banquo. How far is 't call'd to Forres ? What are these 
So wither 'd and so wild in their attire, 
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, 
And yet are on 't ? Live you ? or are you aught 
That man may question ? You seem to understand me, 
By each at once her chappy finger laying 
Upon her skinny lips : you should be women, 
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret 
That you are so. 

Macbeth. Speak, if you can : what are you ? 

1. [Urthr, the Past.] All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee, thane 
of Glamis ! 

2. [Verthandi, the Present.] All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee, 
thane of Cawdor ! [This title the king is now bestowing upon 
him, perhaps at this very instant. In Holinshed, it is ' shortlie 
after ' the three women meet the two warriors that the king honors 
Macbeth by making him thane of Cawdor.] 

3. [Skuld, the Future.] All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king 
hereafter ! " 

I. iii. 38-50. 

It is not so plain that the three sisters speak in 
character in what is said to Banquo in the tragedy, 
but I do not think that we force the meaning if 
we interpret these speeches in the same way as the 
previous ones. 

"Banquo 

If you can look into the seeds of time, 
And say which grain will grow and which will not, 
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear 
Your favours nor your hate. 

1. Hail! 

2. Hail! 

3. Hail! 

1. [The Past.] Lesser [by birth] than Macbeth [the cousin of 
the king], and greater [in integrity,. because he has been harbour- 
ing a wicked ambition] . 



94 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

2. [The Present.] Not so happy, yet much happier [' t. e., not 
so fortunate [as Macbeth in securing a present mark of honour], 
but much more blessed.' — Schmidt]. 

3. [The Future.] Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none : 
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo ! 

1. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail ! " 

I. iii. 58-69. 

It may be that Shakespeare's exact division of 
the roles into Past, Present, and Future, is in a 
measure accidental, being suggested by Holinshed 
in the case of the speeches to Macbeth, and sim- 
ply repeated in the words addressed to Banquo. 
It seems probable, however, that the careful dis- 
tinction observed here between the three Norns is 
intentional. That " the weird sisters " are those 
" creatures of elder world," the mighty goddesses 
of destiny, can hardly be questioned. They are 
not called witches in the play itself, but always 
"the weird sisters" or "the weird women"; 
though one of them tells of the circumstances 
under which a sailor's wife said to her, "Aroint 
thee, witch ! " (I. iii. 6). The only other use of the 
word witch in the text of the play occurs when 
a " witches' mummy " is mentioned (IV. i. 23) 
among the many uncanny things which, in the 
cauldron, 

" Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. ,, 

The word weird, as has been said, was taken 
into modern English from " Macbeth." Its signi- 
ficance, however, has not been understood. The 
word in its present use is an adjective, and has a 
range of meaning indicated by the words wild, 



THE WEIRD SISTERS AS WITCHES 95 

mysterious, uncanny, unearthly, ghostly ; weird 
in " Macbeth " was vaguely felt to express this 
combination of ideas. In the Scotch dialect of 
English the word has not died out, and retains the 
older meaning, fate, destiny. The word is com- 
mon in Scott; for example, Meg Merrilies in 
" Guy Mannering " speaks often of the "weird," 
or destiny, of Harry Bertram. 

VII. DID SHAKESPEARE REPRESENT THE WEIRD 
SISTERS AS WITCHES ? 

The powerful conception of the three Fates, 
" the weird sisters," is not maintained throughout 
the tragedy of " Macbeth," as every reader knows. 
In the opening scene of the play, and in that part 
of Scene iii. Act I. which precedes the entrance 
of Macbeth and Banquo, we have simply three 
witches, — witches of exceptional power and ma- 
lignancy, but not the great goddesses of destiny. 

In Scene v. of Act III. the sisters are degraded 
still farther to inferior and disobedient witches. 
Their queen Hecate reprimands them for acting 
without informing her and allowing her to play a 
part. This distressing scene reaches a climax of 
unfitness when Hecate suggests that Macbeth has 
pretended to be in love with the hags : — 

" First Witch. Why, how now, Hecate ! you look angerly. 

Hecate. Have I not reason, beldams as you are, 
Saucy and overbold ? How did you dare 
To trade and traffic with Macbeth 
In riddles and affairs of death ; 
And I, the mistress of your charms, 
The close contriver of all harms, 



96 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

Was never call'd to bear my part, 

Or show the glory of our art ? 

And, which is worse, all you have done 

Hath been but for a wayward son, 

Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do, 

Loves for his own ends, not for you." 

m. v. 1-13. 

Many students of Shakespeare are convinced 
that " Macbeth " has not been preserved for us in 
the exact form in which Shakespeare wrote it. 
The evidence for this view is very strong, almost 
conclusive ; yet no passage need be surrendered 
that lovers of Shakespeare care to claim as his. 
The author of the un-Shakespearean portions of 
" Macbeth " has been thought to be Thomas Mid- 
dleton, principally because the two songs called for 
in the unfitting Hecate parts of the play — of 
which songs the opening words only are given (III. 
v. 33 and IV. i. 43) — were found in full in 
Middleton's play " The Witch," discovered in man- 
uscript about 1779. 

Since it is believed that the play has been tam- 
pered with, some scholars have been inclined to 
say that the portions in which the weird sisters act 
as witches were probably not written by Shake- 
speare. Hudson takes this view for the most part, 
but he cannot deny the genuineness of the power- 
ful cauldron scene, although witches are here pre- 
sented, engaged in the practice of witchcraft. I 
quote his striking defense of the fitness of this pas- 
sage : — 

" Is there any way to account for the altered language 



THE WEIRD SISTERS AS WITCHES 97 

and methods used in the cauldron business, without 
dispossessing the Weird Sisters of their proper charac- 
ter ? Let us see. 

" The Weird Sisters of course have their religion ; 
though, to be sure, that religion is altogether Satanic. 
For so essential is religion of some kind to all social 
life and being, that even the society of Hell cannot sub- 
sist without it. Now, every religion, whether human 
or Satanic, has, and must have, a liturgy and ritual of 
some sort, as its organs of action and expression. The 
Weird Sisters know, by supernatural ways, that Mac- 
beth is burning to question them further, and that he 
has resolved to pay them a visit. To instruct and in- 
spire him in a suitable manner, they arrange to hold a 
religious service in his presence and behalf. And they 
fitly employ the language and ritual of witchcraft, as 
being the only language and ritual which he can un- 
derstand and take the sense of : they adopt, for the 
occasion, the sacraments of witchcraft, because these 
are the only sacraments whereby they can impart to 
him the Satanic grace and efficacy which it is their 
office to dispense. The language, however, and ritual 
of witchcraft are in their use condensed and intensified 
to the highest degree of potency and impressiveness. 
Thus their appalling infernal liturgy is a special and 
necessary accommodation to the senses and the mind 
of the person they are dealing with. It really seems to 
me that they had no practicable way but to speak and 
act in this instance just like witches, only a great deal 
more so." 1 

We naturally feel that it not only degrades the 
weird sisters to put them before us as witches, but 
that witches make vulgar and unfitting characters 

1 Harvard Shakespeare, xvii. 130. 



98 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

at the best in a serious drama. Let us attempt for 
a moment, however, to identify ourselves with 
Shakespeare, the actor and playwright, seeking to 
impress an Elizabethan audience. 

To the men of that day witches were a reality. 
The world of witchcraft was dark and mysterious, 
but it was real. " Macbeth " seems to have been 
written about the year 1606. Nine years before 
this, King James VI. of Scotland published " a 
learned and painful " treatise to prove that every 
Christian must necessarily believe in witchcraft, 
and in this work all the minutiae of the subject 
were duly expounded. In March, 1603, he became 
king of England also, by the death of Elizabeth. 
During the first year of his reign over the double 
kingdom, and perhaps partly in compliment to his 
convictions and expert knowledge on the subject, 
a new statute against witchcraft was passed, which 
remained in force until 1736. Listen to the solemn 
utterances of this law : — 

" If any person or persons shall use, practice, or ex- 
ercise any invocation or conjuration of any evil and 
wicked spirit, or shall consult, covenant with, entertain, 
employ, feed, or reward any evil and wicked spirit to 
or for any intent or purpose, or take up any dead man, 
woman, or child out of his, her, or their grave or any 
other place where the dead body resteth, or the skin, 
bone, or any part of any dead person, to be employed or 
used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or 
enchantment, or shall use, practice, or exercise any witch- 
craft, enchantment, charm, or sorcery, whereby any per- 
son shall be killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined, 



THE WEIRD SISTERS AS WITCHES 99 

or lamed in his or her body or any part thereof," every 
such offender is a felon without benefit of clergy. 1 

In 1665, at the trial of some Suffolk witches, 
Sir Thomas Browne, the well-known author of the 
" Religio Medici," testified as an expert in favor 
of the reality of witchcraft. Sir Matthew Hale, 
afterward lord chief justice of England, presided 
at the trial ; and in summing up the case, adduced 
Scripture in support of his own belief in the real 
existence of witches. 

Shakespeare had been dead seventy-six years 
when the witchcraft delusion of 1692 broke out 
in Salem village. The prosecutions were brought 
under the statute of James L; but undoubtedly 
the command which, in the minds of the colonists, 
seemed at the time to justify the executions was that 
in Exodus xxii. 18 : " Thou shalt not suffer a witch 
to live." Professor Henry Ferguson well says : — 

" It should always be remembered that belief in 
witchcraft was not a peculiarity of New England, and 
that the reason the colonists there have been judged so 
hardly for their panic is that men have felt that they 
had claimed to be superior to the men of their genera- 
tion, and thus should be measured by a higher stand- 
ard." 2 

More than a hundred years after " Macbeth " 
was written, Addison describes for us Sir Roger de 
Coverley, who, though the leading squire of his 
county and a model country gentleman, " would fre- 

1 Encyclopaedia Britannica, under " Witchcraft.'' 

2 Essays in American History, p. 61. 

LcfC. 



100 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

quently have bound " poor old Moll White " over 
to the county sessions, had not his chaplain with 
much ado persuaded him to the contrary." 

But more illuminating for us is the opinion of 
Addison himself, who declares, after a careful and 
serious argument : " I believe in general that there 
is, and has been, such a thing as witchcraft ; but 
at the same time can give no credit to any particu- 
lar instance of it." 1 

The " Encyclopaedia Britannica " gives, as the 
last trial for witchcraft in England, that of Jane 
Wenham in 1712. She was convicted, but not 
executed. The statute of James I. was repealed in 
1736. 

Although the modern drama permits many con- 
ventional departures from actual life, its cardinal 
quality is vivid realism. The most exalted hero of 
history or epic tradition when put upon the stage 
becomes completely human, stands upon a level 
with the spectators, and appeals to their sympathy. 
Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet, each seems to the hum- 
blest auditor to be but an extension, an enlarge- 
ment of his own personality, a second self ; each 
appeals to him entirely by virtue of a common 
human nature. 

The sense of reality is essential to a serious drama 
of the highest type. u A Midsummer-Night's 
Dream " is sportive ; but " Julius Caesar," " Ham- 
let," and " Macbeth" set forth what the spectators 
for whom they were written accepted as a portrayal 

1 Spectator Essays, No. 117. 



THE WEIRD SISTERS AS WITCHES 101 

of real life. Shakespeare in appealing to his audi- 
ences made use of the general conceptions and be- 
liefs that filled their minds, just as he made use of 
the Elizabethan form of the language ; neverthe- 
less, he was careful to employ the agency of the 
supernatural, as Professor Moulton expresses it, 
only " to intensify and to illuminate human action, 
not to determine it." The supernatural was not 
allowed to be really causative. Because of this wise 
method, his plays, which fascinated the men of his 
own day, appeal with equal power to us, who hold 
opinions decidedly different from theirs concerning 
supernatural manifestations. 

It must be admitted that there is a lack of har- 
mony, even a decided clash, in uniting in the same 
persons the imperturbable goddesses of destiny and 
malignant witches ; but if the weird women were 
to have roles of any length, it was necessary that 
they be made completely real, that they be human- 
ized in some form. If they remain upon the stage, 
they must do something, something which human 
beings do, or which, when this play was written, 
human beings were supposed under some circum- 
stances to do. The Greeks had a similar difficulty, 
though their drama was far less realistic than is 
ours. Says Freytag : — 

" Whenever the gods had to play a real part upon 
the stage, and not simply to utter a command ex ma- 
ehindy then they were of necessity either entirely trans- 
formed into men, with all the pain and anger of men, 
as was Prometheus, or they sank below the nobility of 



102 STUDIES IN MACBETH 

human nature, without the poet heing able to hinder it, 
down to blank generalizations of love and hate, like the 
Athene in the prologue of ' Ajax.' " x 

We see that, when " Macbeth " appeared, the 
entire English people, king and subjects, believed 
in the reality of witchcraft. The usual manner in 
which the emissaries of Satan actually did lure 
men to evil was thought to be known, in a general 
way. If the weird sisters were to do that work, 
they would naturally do it in that way ; they would 
use the apparatus of witchcraft. They must submit 
to dramatic necessity and be humanized ; but they 
were humanized as witches, — creatures dwelling on 
the very confines of humanity and holding commerce 
with the devil, — " secret, black, and midnight 
hags," doing deeds " without a name." Shakespeare 
yields to dramatic necessity, but gives to the caul- 
dron scene all possible poetic impressiveness ; he 
takes the supposed facts of witchcraft and raises 
them to the nth power. 

It is not probable that the " commonplace and 
vulgar " quality which Hudson finds in the opening 
portion of Scene iii. Act I. was painfully evident 
even to the more sensitive persons in Shakespeare's 
audiences. The passage may well be Shakespeare's, 
although it is not his best work ; and it may be in 
some degree a concession to the delight that the 
audience was sure to take in the witches. So long 
as witchcraft was thoroughly believed in, effective 
use could be made of it upon the stage. " Killing 

1 Translated from Die Technik des Dramas, p. 52. 



THE WEIRD SISTERS AS WITCHES 103 

swine " and " sailing in a sieve " were believed to 
be common occupations among witches ; probably 
the first of these opinions sprang from the account 
of the destruction of the herd of swine by the devils, 
as told in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and was felt 
to have some degree of Scripture authority. Such 
forms of activity naturally seem commonplace and 
vulgar to us ; but they would not if we believed 
in witches ; and while we are reading " Macbeth," 
we must believe in them. 

In view of these considerations, I do not care to 
question the genuineness of any of the supernatural 
portions of the play except the role of Hecate and 
a few lines closely connected therewith. 1 Her pre- 
sence in the drama is a distinct blemish. 

1 Let us say III. v. ; IV. i. 39-43, 125-132. Mr. E. K. Cham- 
bers, in the Arden Macbeth, rejects these passages, and no more. 



LANIER'S "SCIENCE OF ENGLISH 
VERSE " 



LANIER'S « SCIENCE OF ENGLISH 
VERSE " i 

Let any man read some representative poem from 
the writings of Swinburne, one which fairly carries 
him away by the richness of its rhythm and the 
melody of its sounds. He will say : " This poet 
sometimes lacks clearness of expression ; sometimes, 
nobility of thought ; but he has a marvelous com- 
mand of the purely formal elements of English 
verse." Let that man now turn to the works upon 
English versification that preceded Sidney La- 
nier's " Science of English Verse " and seek to find 
a careful analysis and exposition of those qualities 
of Swinburne's poetry which have charmed his own 
ear. He will search in vain. So far from finding 
those qualities explained, he will not find them 
even recognized. If he chances upon the writings 
of Lanier's brother-Baltimoreans, Edgar A. Poe 
and Professor Sylvester, he will get some real light. 
Elsewhere he will find — not " light, but darkness 
visible." 

The ignorance concerning the nature of English 
verse which Lanier found to prevail was of no or- 
dinary kind. It was a scientific ignorance, in the 

1 Reprinted from A Memorial of Sidney Lanier, Baltimore, 

1888. 



108 SCIENCE OF ENGLISH VERSE 

sense that it had been reduced to a science. It had 
classified and labeled all the multitude of pheno- 
mena which it did not understand. It talked learn- 
edly of trochees, and anapests, and amphibrachs, 
and hypercatalecticism. It had developed rules for 
the making of verse, and the smallest one of these 
had exceptions enough to fill a volume. It had all 
the form of sound knowledge, " but denying the 
power thereof." 

The students of this strange pseudo-science stood 
ready to frown down any intruder who should bring 
in a ray of common sense to light up their darkness, 
by telling him, " My dear Sir, you ignore all the 
accepted principles of English prosody." With all 
his gift for hyperbole, Poe hardly overstates the 
case when he says, concerning the theory of ver- 
sification, — " There is, perhaps, no topic in polite 
literature which has been more pertinaciously dis- 
cussed ; and there is certainly not one about which 
so much inaccuracy, confusion, misconception, mis- 
representation, mystification, and downright igno- 
rance on all sides, can be fairly said to exist." 

Inborn delicacy of hearing and long training 
fitted Lanier for the task of investigating English 
verse. Quietly disregarding the learned rubbish 
that had accumulated, he studied our verse as a 
set of present phenomena of the world of sound. 
He listened, and listened to the very thing itself, 
the sound-groups concerning which he wished to 
learn. He gathered his facts carefully, he verified 
and arranged them, until the great laws which 



SCIENCE OF ENGLISH VERSE 109 

underlie the phenomena stood out clear and unmis- 
takable. These laws he then set forth in language 
which is as severely accurate as if he had never 
penned a line of poetry, as if all flights of imagi- 
nation were utterly distasteful to him. 

This statement of Lanier's method of study sets 
aside in a measure the objections that some of his 
historical illustrations are incorrectly interpreted, 
and that he has paid no attention to the work of 
some careful students of the history of English 
verse. Lanier sought, primarily, to explain Eng- 
lish verse as a present fact. There is a school of 
philologians which says, " Observe carefully the 
facts of the formation and growth of language as 
it exists to-day. Then you will have the means for 
understanding substantially all that we shall ever 
know of its formation and development in all 
ages." If Lanier has accurately analyzed and in- 
terpreted English verse as it exists to-day, then he 
has given us the laws that will explain to us at 
least the greater part of all that we shall ever know 
concerning the nature of that verse in all the 
periods of its existence. 

The first and longest division of the " Science 
of English Verse " contains a complete treatment 
of the subject of verse-rhythm. Lanier considers 
rhythm in verse to be the marking off to the ear by 
the accent of equal intervals of time ; hence verse- 
rhythm is essentially the same thing as rhythm in 
music, and all other rhythm. 

In this broad position it seems to me that Lanier 



110 SCIENCE OF ENGLISH VERSE 

is unquestionably right. His demonstration may- 
need to be modified in some particulars ; it will 
never be overthrown. We shall still hear that 
" accent and not quantity is the governing principle 
of English verse " ; but we shall hear less of this 
as time goes on. Astronomy and astrology were 
long cultivated side by side. So long as man's 
heart-beats are separated by equal intervals, and 
his legs are of equal length, he will never distribute 
accents without reference to time. If any one really 
wishes to hear a faint suggestion of such sound- 
anarchy, let him touch off a bunch of Chinese 
firecrackers. 

The rhythm of our verse, however, does not 
always attain to the exactness of the rhythm of 
music. Lanier's musical bent is seen in the fact 
that he treats the rhythmical accent of verse almost 
as if it were a thing independent of every-day ac- 
cent. In rendering music we give accent to musical 
sounds ; in reading poetry we find it in spoken 
sounds ; the accent of verse is a new function, sim- 
ply, of the accent of common speech. Lanier's 
own poetical genius was distinctly lyrical. He was 
in a special sense a singer. His most representative 
verse-form was the grand lyric, especially the Ode, 
with its vast resonance and complex harmony. Lyric 
poetry is that form of verse which is most nearly 
allied to music in the exactness and the promi- 
nence of its rhythm. Lanier had a tendency to look 
upon English verse as lyric verse. In free blank- 
verse, it seems to be true that not so much of the 



SCIENCE OF ENGLISH VERSE 111 

expression is committed to the rhythm ; the words 
have a substantive, an independent meaning, which 
the separate tones of a piece of music do not have, 
and which the words of a lyric poem do not have 
in the same degree relative to the demands of the 
rhythm. To this independent meaning of the words, 
the rhythm of free blank-verse often seems to de- 
fer. Hence we have frequent omissions of the 
rhythmical accent, even in measures that are filled 
with sound, frequent displacements of the accent, 
and a bewildering variety of equivalent forms of 
the measure ; and even the fundamental rhythm 
itself, which is clearly heard through all interrup- 
tions, is not marked off to the ear with the same 
exactness as in lyric verse. Occasional lines, too, 
may for the sake of expressiveness show excep- 
tional rhythmic peculiarities. Still, so far as this 
takes place, it is really an escape from rhythm ; 
and it cannot be carried far in good verse. Lanier 
has stated the norm, the great basal principle gov- 
erning verse-rhythm. 1 

In the second and third divisions of the book, 
" The Tunes of English Verse " and " The Colors 
of English Verse," the treatment is clear, sound, 
and strikingly suggestive. All must regret that 
Lanier did not live to investigate these topics more 
fully. 

The late Professor E. E. Sill, a life-long stu- 

1 The student is referred to an admirable discussion of " The 
Time-Element in English Verse," pp. 391-409 in Professor R. M. 
Alden's English Verse, New York, 1903. 



112 SCIENCE OF ENGLISH VERSE 

dent and teacher of English poetry, a judicious 
critic, and a poet of fine quality, said of this book, — 
"It is the only work that has ever made any 
approach to a rational view of the subject. Nor 
are the standard ones overlooked in making this 
assertion." 

The book is clear and explicit everywhere. We 
follow its pages, instantly accepting or question- 
ing every statement ; and we forget how rare such 
precision and perspicuity are, and how difficult of 
attainment. The contrast is complete between this 
work and the cuneiform inscriptions which had 
passed for expositions of English verse. 

Perhaps no feature of the book is more admira- 
ble than the thoroughness with which Lanier maps 
out the field. This makes it possible for others to 
supplement his work, to build upon his foun- 
dation. Merely as a logical exercise, it would be 
well if every young student could read the opening 
chapter, " The Investigation of Sound as Artistic 
Material." 

The present writer does not care to dwell upon 
those details in this work concerning which there 
may be differences of opinion. He prefers to recall 
the delight with which he read the book twice 
through on its appearance, and felt for the first 
time that he had solid ground under his feet in the 
study of English verse. He gratefully acknowledges 
his personal indebtedness to this book. 

The scientific precision of Lanier's treatment of 
his subject and the relentlessness with which he 



SCIENCE OF ENGLISH VERSE 113 

follows every proposition out to its logical conclu- 
sions are a new illustration of the truth that a great 
poet must have an orderly, a scientific mind. Only 
such a mind is thoroughly fitted for that higher 
form of rationality, poetic inspiration. 

We commonly conceive of a great poet most in- 
adequately. Milton has told us that large powers, 
wide knowledge, long training, and " devout prayer " 
should all be found united in such a one, — and 
that he who would sing well " ought himself also 
to be a true poem." The mental and the moral 
sanity of Sidney Lanier — his thirst for knowledge, 
his trained intellect, his passion for holiness — 
were the indispensable conditions and an essential 
part of his poetic greatness. 

It is easy to look upon the " Science of English 
Verse " as something standing apart from Lanier's 
life-work. He did not so regard it. It was the 
foundation, broad and deep, on which he was to 
build a mighty Temple of Song, for the delight of 
man and the glory of God. Of that Temple he 
fashioned one portal, fair, chaste, and strong. And 
then — just as his fingers, now grown fully deft, 
eagerly grasped the mallet and chisel, just as the 
firm stone seemed fairly pliant to his touch, just 
as the grateful appreciation of his fellow-men, long 
delayed, swelled to a chorus, then — 

" God's finger touched him, and he slept." 



SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE AND 
MODERN ADAPTATIONS 



SHAKESPEAKE'S STAGE AND MODEKN 
ADAPTATIONS * 

As early as the reign of Henry VII. the wealthy 
English lords began to attach to their retinues per- 
manent companies of actors. Gradually a class of 
professional actors grew up. When not perform- 
ing before their lords or at court, these companies 
often presented plays in the inclosed four-sided 
yards of inns. A platform was built inside the 
great gateway by which the yard was entered, and 
spectators beheld the performance from the yard 
and the inner balconies. In many ways the first 
theatres copied these inn-yards. 

The first London theatres had to be built outside 
the city limits because of the opposition of the 
Puritan city government. The first playhouse 
erected was The Theatre, built in 1576, in Shore- 
ditch, just outside of the city at the northeastern 
edge. Very soon after, and in the same locality, 
was built The Curtain, which received its name from 

1 Reprinted with additions from the author's edition of Julius 
Ccesar, Globe School Book Co., 1901. 

Use has been made of the following* recent articles : Lawrence, 
" Some Characteristics of the Elizabethan-Stuart Stage," Englische 
Studien, xxxii. 36-51; E. E. Hale, Jr., " The Influence of Theat- 
rical Conditions on Shakespeare," Modern Philology, i. 171-92. 

It has been necessary to omit or pass lightly over many matters 
of detail and many difficult and unsettled questions. 



118 SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE 

the plot of ground on which it stood ; none of the 
early houses had a drop-curtain. The next theatres 
were built south of the river Thames. The Rose, 
on the Bankside, was completed at least as early as 
1592, and The Swan, near by, a very few years 
later. The Blackfriars Theatre, built in 1596, was 
located within the city limits, at the southwest. 
The property had formerly belonged to the " black 
friars," and seems to have been free in a measure 
from the control of the city authorities. In 1599 
The Theatre was torn down, and the timbers were 
used in erecting The Globe, on the Bankside. The 
Fortune was erected in 1600, on the northern edge 
of the western portion of the city. Thus there were 
certainly as many as six theatres in existence at 
the close of 1600. 

Before 1888 our knowledge of the interior ar- 
rangement of an English theatre during the lifetime 
of Shakespeare was very vague. In that year a Ger- 
man scholar named Gaedertz published a facsimile 
of a pen-and-ink drawing of the interior of the fa- 
mous Swan Theatre. This drawing, which is repro- 
duced here (page 120), was made by a Dutchman 
named John de Witt, who was visiting in London, 
and is thought to belong to about the year 1596. 

It will be seen that the theatre is either oval or 
circular in shape ; that the body of the house and 
the front of the stage are open to the sky ; and that 
the back of the stage and the three galleries, which 
rise one above the other on the outside of the thea- 
tre, are roofed over. These galleries are divided 



AND MODERN ADAPTATIONS 119 

into private boxes. The spectators in the pit, or 
yard, in front of the stage stood while witnessing 
the performance. 

A roof covers the rear portion of the stage. 
Perched up on top of this roof is a small tower 
room, which is the loftiest portion of the entire 
theatre. In the drawing of De Witt, a flag having 
on it the figure of a " swan " is flying from this 
tower, and a trumpeter is sounding a blast in order 
to announce that a play is about to begin. 

The orchestra was placed close by the stage in the 
lowest gallery. Music is perhaps the only stage ac- 
cessory that was as prominent in Shakespeare's day 
as it is now. It often took part in the action, as in 
" Julius Caesar," I. ii., and " King Lear," IV. vii. 

The stage projects out into the house in a way 
that seems strange to us. The nearness of the 
actors to the audience, and the lack of means for 
elaborate decorative and spectacular effects, com- 
bined to place great emphasis upon declamation 
and acting. The long rhetorical speeches in Shake- 
speare's plays show that especial interest was taken 
in vocal expression. Hamlet's advice to the players, 
III. ii. 1-50, is concerned primarily with elocution, 
to a less degree with acting. The great sins of an 
actor are " strutting and bellowing." 

There was a trap in the floor of Shakespeare's 
stage, probably in the front section. It was used 
for Ophelia's grave in " Hamlet." The magic 
cauldron sinks into it and disappears in " Mac- 
beth," IV. i. 106. 



120 



SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE 




INTERIOR OF THE SWAN THEATRE, LONDON, ABOUT 1596 



AND MODERN ADAPTATIONS 



121 



There was no curtain before the front stage. 
Every character in a front scene must enter and 
go off before our eyes. If any had been slain, they 
must be carried off. When Falstaff bears away on 
his back the dead Hotspur, in order to boast of 
having killed him, in " I. Henry IV.," Shakespeare 
skillfully brings into the substance of his play the 







PICTURE OF AN ENGLISH STAGE DURING 
A THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 

From the title-page of William Alabaster's 
Latin tragedy Rozana, London, 1632 

necessary clearing of the stage. At the close of 
many of the tragedies the characters themselves 
give directions for carrying off the dead. It was 
not wise to have the dead men come to life amid 
the jeers — and missiles — of the spectators. 

But the absence of a front curtain went far 
deeper than these somewhat external matters would 
indicate. It affected the entire manner of writing 
plays. Says Mr. Arthur Dillon : — 



122 SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE 

"Elizabethan dramatists had to round off a scene 
to a conclusion, for there was no kindly curtain to cover 
retreat from a deadlock. The art of modern playwrit- 
ing is to arrest the action suddenly upon a thrilling 
situation, and to leave the characters between the horns 
of a dilemma. . . . [Shakespeare's] constructive plan 
is particularly unsuited to the act-drop. Upon one of 
Shakespeare's plays the curtain falls like the knife of 
a guillotine. The effect is similar to ending a piece of 
music abruptly at its highest note, simply for the sake 
of startling effect." 2 

The front stage usually had little or no scenery. 
It could represent any open place. As soon as one 
scene was completed by the going off of the char- 
acters a new set of persons could at once enter, and 
the audience would imagine any desired change of 
scene, provided only that the action was still in the 
open air. Thus the many short scenes in the first 
part of " Coriolanus," in which bands of Roman 
and Volscian warriors come before us alternately, 
were presented with a simplicity, rapidity, and ef- 
fectiveness that our stage knows nothing of. Our 
editors of Shakespeare are sometimes too anxious 
to give an exact location to each of these front 
scenes. The audience understood them to be en- 
acted " in an open place," or simply " out of doors." 

The special use of the back stage was to repre- 
sent a room in a palace or princely house. Upon 
this portion of the stage, use was made of a few 
appropriate articles of furniture and other " prop- 

1 Quoted by Lawrence from The Westminster Review, April, 
1895. 



AND MODERN ADAPTATIONS 123 

erties." The back wall was sometimes hung with 
arras, behind which Falstaff ensconces himself on 
one occasion and Polonius on another. In " Romeo 
and Juliet " the back stage represents the great 
reception hall of Capulet. In Act V. it is trans- 
formed into the tomb of the Capulets. Domestic 
scenes were acted upon this back stage. Here ap- 
peared Lady Percy, Calpurnia, both Portias, and 
all the other noble women of Shakespeare, closing 
with Imogen, Hermione, and Queen Katharine. 
This English type of stage was carried to Ger- 
many, and the German stage directions of that 
time speak of the " inner stage." 

In the last act of " The Tempest," where Pros- 
pero " discovers Ferdinand and Miranda playing at 
chess," we are to understand that he draws back 
the curtains, which up to that moment had shut off 
the back stage, in order that the king of Naples and 
his nobles may behold the lovers. 

It must be admitted that we see nothing in this 
sketch of the Swan Theatre of any curtain that 
could be drawn to separate the front part of the 
stage from the back. But it may be that The Swan 
was not fully supplied with the usual devices, since 
it had a removable stage, two of the supports of 
which we see in the picture. This fact enabled the 
structure to be changed into an amphitheatre for 
various athletic contests ; and this theatre appears 
to have been more frequently employed for such 
uses than as a playhouse. That a portion of the 
stage could be curtained off in a well-equipped 
Elizabethan theatre is certain. 



124 SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE 

Mr. Lawrence holds that " the curtains " men- 
tioned in a number of Elizabethan plays were trav- 
erses, a pair of curtains that were drawn together 
from the side, and that they came only a little in 
front of the back wall of the stage. A number of 
passages do seem to imply the curtaining off of only 
a small portion of the stage. The characters are 
already in a room in Portia's house, that is pre- 
sumably upon the back stage, when Portia in " The 
Merchant of Venice," II. vii. 1, directs that the 
curtains be drawn aside to disclose the caskets. 
Nerissa gives the same direction in II. ix. 1. Only 
a small space was needed for the caskets. It is not 
necessary, however, to give up the idea that the 
entire back stage could also be curtained off. It 
would not be a very troublesome convention for 
the audience to accept the back stage under these 
circumstances as entirely invisible, even if it were 
left open at the sides. What Ilalliwell-Phillipps 
offers as a statement of fact may be accepted as 
probably correct : " Intersecting the stage were 
two curtains of arras, one running along near the 
back, and the other about the centre, either being 
drawn as occasion required." 1 

The question naturally arises, — How were the 
spectators in the balcony behind the stage to see 
what was done upon the forward portion when the 
two great divisions of the stage were separated by 
curtains ? Perhaps these boxes, u the Lords' room," 

1 Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, 10th edition, London, 
1898, vol. i. p.' 184. 



AND MODERN ADAPTATIONS 125 

were not used by spectators in the case of plays 
where this difficulty was important. 

In addition to the front and back portions of 
the stage, the doors which lead from the back stage 
into the " tiring house," or dressing-room, some- 
times come into the action. For example, they 
represent the gates of Corioli. Through one of 
these Caius Marcius enters the city alone, and then 
fights his way out again covered with blood, thus 
inspiring his followers to capture the city, and win- 
ning for himself the proud name Coriolanus. These 
same doors are the gates of many different castles 
and cities in the plays which are named from the 
various English kings. One of these represents the 
outer door of the house of Antipholus of Ephesus, 
in " The Comedy of Errors," III. i., when that 
gentleman and his servant Dromio are barred out 
from his own home by Dromio of Syracuse. 

Only one who has given special attention to the 
matter can realize how important in the presenta- 
tion of Shakespeare's plays was the balcony over 
the "tiring house." This third, or upper stage, 
with the rear wall of the back stage, represented 
the walls of many cities and castles ; for example, 
the castle wall from which young Arthur jumps 
to his death in " King John." This little gallery 
becomes the window from which Brabantio speaks 
at the opening of " Othello," and also the window 
of Juliet's chamber. In the sketch of the Swan 
Theatre, this balcony seems to be occupied by 
spectators. 



126 SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE 

The only other known picture of an English 
stage before the Eestoration, also reproduced here 
(page 121), is a very small one upon the title-page 
of a Latin tragedy, " Roxana " by name, published 
in 1632. 1 In this diminutive cut the stage is sur- 
rounded at the outer edge by a low railing. The 
rear balcony is occupied by spectators, as in the 
view of the Swan Theatre. But while in The Swan 
this balcony lay wholly behind the rear wall of the 
back stage, unless the drawing is at fault, in the 
picture of 1632 it seems to project forward, form- 
ing beneath it a recess or alcove. This recess is 
almost entirely hidden from us by side curtains 
drawn across the stage ; these seem to hang from 
the front edge of the balcony. 

It is a little strange that no spectators are sit- 
ting upon the stage at the sides in either of the two 
early pictures. This common practice is brought 
into that most interesting and many-sided play 
" The Knight of the Burning Pestle," by Beaumont 
and Fletcher. Hardly has the Speaker of the Pro- 
logue begun his lines, when a Citizen leaps upon the 
stage from the audience and falls to berating the 
players because they are ever girding at the citi- 
zens in their plays. Soon the Wife of the Citizen 
climbs up after him, and then Ralph their appren- 
tice. The couple demand that Ralph be given a 
part in the performance, and the Speaker of the 
Prologue consents. The naive comments of the 

1 The cut on page 121 has been copied from that in the Jahrbuch 
of the German Shakespeare Society, vol. xxxiv. (1898), p. 324. 



AND MODERN ADAPTATIONS 127 

pair, as they sit upon their stools and watch the play, 
are deliciously absurd. 

It will be interesting to quote some passages 
from the sixth chapter of " The Gull's Horn-Book," 
by Dekker, which discusses " How a Gallant should 
behave himself in a Play-house." 

" Do but cast up a reckoning, what large comings-in 
are pursed up by sitting on the stage. First a conspicu- 
ous eminence is gotten ; by which means the best and 
most essential parts of a gallant — good clothes, a pro- 
portionable leg, white hand, the Persian lock, and a 
tolerable beard — are perfectly revealed. 

" By sitting on the stage you have a signed patent to 
engross the whole commodity of censure, may lawfully 
presume to be a girder and stand at the helm to steer 
the passage of scenes ; yet no man shall once offer to 
hinder you from obtaining the title of an insolent, over- 
weening coxcomb. 

" If you know not the author, you may rail against 
him, and peradventure so behave yourself that you may 
enforce the author to know you. 

" Present not yourself on the stage, especially at a 
new play, until the quaking Prologue hath, by rubbing, 
got color into his cheeks, and is ready to give the trum- 
pets their cue that he 's upon point to enter ; for then 
it is time, as though you were one of the properties, or 
that you dropped out of the hangings, to creep from 
behind the arras, with your tripos or three-footed stool 
in one hand." 1 

1 From vol. ii. of Dekker's Non-Dramatic Works, edited by 
Grosart, Huth Library. The spelling has been modernized. 



128 SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE 

We have seen the effect on the art of the play- 
wright which was caused by the absence of a front 
curtain. The division of the stage into front and 
back portions also had certain results. Professor 
Alois Brandl believes that, inasmuch as the back 
stage was furnished and arranged to represent in 
a rough way each specific indoor scene, two back 
scenes representing decidedly different interiors 
could not come in succession, since this would give 
no opportunity to change the furnishings, and the 
Elizabethan audiences had not learned to wait. In 
" Antony and Cleopatra " a scene in a room of one 
palace is free to follow or precede another palace 
scene, whether in Rome or Alexandria. But Brandl 
thinks that Shakespeare was compelled to insert at 
least one front scene whenever two back scenes with 
different settings would otherwise come together. 
Sometimes these inserted scenes are dramatically 
superfluous and ineffective. Act III. Scene vi. 
of "Richard III."; III. v. of "The Merchant of 
Venice"; « Cymbeline," II. i. ; "Richard II.," 

III. iv.; and "Antony and Cleopatra," III. i., 1 — 
seem to be scenes of this kind, forced upon Shake- 
speare by a stage necessity. Since III. ii. of " Julius 
Caesar " uses the entire stage, as we shall see, and 

I V. i., a room in a house at Rome, requires the back 
stage, it has been maintained that III. iii., the en- 
counter between the poet Cinna and the mob, was 
necessary in order to give time for the preparing of 

1 The writer is not aware that the last two of these scenes have 
been previously pointed out. 



AND MODERN ADAPTATIONS 129 

the back stage for IV. i. Many have felt, also, that 
III. iii. is in itself of little or no value to the drama. 
This scene is almost universally omitted upon the 
stage at the present day. 

It will be interesting to note in detail the prob- 
able method of staging an individual play ; and for 
this purpose we will select " Julius Caesar." The 
stage directions in the Folio are very scanty. Let us 
go through the play and consider how each scene 
was presented on the Elizabethan stage. The whole 
of Act I. would be given upon the front stage, in the 
open air ; also the first scene of Act II., in Brutus's 
orchard. From his orchard Brutus hears the knock- 
ing upon the door of the dressing-room back of the 
stage, which represents the outer door of his house. 
Scene ii. of Act II., in Caesar's house, is the first 
indoor scene, the first one played upon the back 
stage. Scenes iii. and iv. are street scenes on the 
front stage. The opening of Act III. is a problem. 
The Folio simply states that the characters "enter" 
at the beginning, and tells us after line 76 that 
" They stab Ccesar." The stage directions here 
in all editions are modern ; those that are most 
satisfactory follow carefully the account given by 
Plutarch. Apparently the procession is upon the 
front stage, representing the street before the Cap- 
itol, for the first twelve lines ; it then passes to the 
back stage, and this represents the entry into the 
Capitol. After line 26 we suppose that Caesar 
takes bis seat, and that the senators, who have 
been standing in compliment to him, do the same. 



130 SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE 

The remainder of the scene takes place upon the 
back stage, within the Capitol. Act III. Scene ii., 
the great scene of the play, is a mass scene, and the 
entire stage, front and back, is used to represent the 
Roman Forum. Indeed, the balcony is also em- 
ployed ; for when Brutus " goes into the pulpit," 
he mounts into this rear balcony ; and Antony suc- 
ceeds him there, until asked by the mob to come 
down. Next we have the much-discussed front 
scene between Cinna the poet and the mob, III. iii. 
We infer that IV. i. takes place in " a house in 
Rome," and was represented upon the back stage. 
In IV. ii. the front stage represents the space before 
Brutus's tent ; at the end of this scene Brutus and 
Cassius pass to the back stage, the interior of the 
tent, for Scene iii. Concerning the Ghost the Folio 
is very specific : " Enter the Ghost of Ccesar" 
Act V. was played entirely upon the front stage, in 
the open air. 

Professor Brandl believes that the three separate 
divisions of the Elizabethan stage were sometimes 
all in use together, that three different groups of 
persons could in some measure claim the attention 
of the audience at the same time. He thinks that 
Act IV. Scenes iv. and v. of " Romeo and Juliet " 
were thus presented : a — 

" In the reception hall — that is, upon the back stage 
— Lady Capulet and the nurse are busily engaged in 
preparing the meal for the wedding guests; servants 

1 From the Introduction to vol. 1. of a new edition of the 
Schlegel-Tieck translation of Shakespeare, Leipzig, 1897. 



AND MODERN ADAPTATIONS 131 

with food, firewood, and baskets are hurrying to and 
from the kitchen ; the nurse is sent up into Juliet's cham- 
ber in order to waken the prospective bride. Above in 
the balcony we see her draw back the window curtain, 
but she cannot arouse the sleeper — below the clatter of 
preparation continues — the nurse becomes anxious and 
calls for help. Lady Capulet climbs the stair and beholds 
the sad spectacle ; Capulet appears ; both lament over 
the body of their daughter. In the mean time, musicians 
have drawn near upon the front stage ; Paris will carry 
away his bride with cheery piping ; thus the festive 
tumult ever increases on the floor of the stage, as does 
the noise of lamentation above in the chamber ; and both 
of them are at once seen and heard by the spectator, 
until at last the words of Capulet spoken to Paris from 
the window put an end to this shocking contrast. In 
the modern theatre, with all its elaborate apparatus and 
decorations, half of the effect of such scenes is lost." 

After paying so much attention to the interior of 
the theatres of Shakespeare's day, the reader will 
be interested to see how one of them looked upon 
the outside. An exterior view of the second Globe 
Theatre is here reproduced (page 133). This edifice 
was opened in 1614, the original Globe having been 
destroyed by fire in June of the previous year. 

As soon as one examines this picture, or any 
other outside view of a theatre of that period, he 
is struck by the unexpectedly small diameter of the 
building. Professor Edward Everett Hale, Jr., in 
the article already referred to, points out frankly 
the difficulty of believing that these pictures are 
accurate in their proportions. He says : " The 



132 SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE 

usual pictures give a form to the theatres that 
would not be of much use for anything more than 
a cockpit. The familiar form has a height about 
equal to its diameter, or even greater. The height 
cannot have been much more than thirty feet : if 
that were the diameter, when you allow a few feet 
on each side for the boxes, a few more on each side 
for the pit, you will have very little left for the 
stage. It seems as if this must be incorrect, con- 
temporary pictures and all. The Fortune Theatre 
was eighty feet in diameter by thirty-two high, and 
had a pit of fifty-five feet across, in which stood the 
stage. Probably the Globe had as much room, or 
a diameter, say, two and a half times its height." 
Professor Hale adds pungently that these theatres 
seem, according to the contemporary pictures, 
"about as available for dramatic purposes as a 
new factory chimney would be." We may safely 
believe, however, that the picture of the second 
Globe Theatre that is here presented gives in other 
respects a correct general impression. 

Let us now look at the modern method of pre- 
senting Shakespeare. A modern manager puts a 
Shakespearean play on the stage with a vast display 
of elaborate scenery and gorgeous costumes. Long 
waits between the scenes and acts make it neces- 
sary to mutilate the play in various ways. Scenes 
are combined that Shakespeare kept apart, the 
order of the parts of the play is freely departed 
from, and many passages and whole scenes are 
omitted altogether. In this way many touches of 



AND MODERN ADAPTATIONS 133 




THE SECOND GLOBE THEATRE, OPENED IN 1614 

From Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, 10th edition, vol. i. 

p. 315 ; taken by him from Visscher's engraved view of London, 1616. 



134 SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE 

preparation, retrospect, transition, and characteri- 
zation are simply dropped. The result may be 
magnificent, but in many ways it is not Shake- 
speare. Though the dramatist sometimes went too 
far in breaking up the action of a drama into 
separate, scattered scenes, yet in his greatest works 
all the parts of the play should be presented, and 
the correct order of the scenes is a definite part 
of the dramatic effect. Moreover, the expense 
of the elaborate setting is so oppressive that man- 
agers are loath to produce Shakespeare at all. Sir 
Henry Irving made the statement, a few years ago, 
that his losses on Shakespearean productions had 
amounted to £100,000. 

Shakespeare's plays were constructed for Shake- 
speare's theatre ; they are falsified when presented 
to an audience in an entirely different manner. 
This fact has come to be recognized more and 
more, and various attempts have been made to 
remedy the difficulty. A number of Elizabethan 
plays have been acted by the students of Harvard 
University during recent years upon a stage es- 
pecially constructed in the Elizabethan fashion. 
Following this example, other institutions have 
given similar performances. Since 1895 the Eliza- 
bethan Stage Society of London has presented a 
number of Elizabethan plays as nearly as possible 
in the original manner. But the only important 
attempt to appeal to the general public by means 
of a reformed method of staging the plays of Shake- 
speare has been made in Miinchen (Munich), 



AND MODERN ADAPTATIONS 135 

Germany. In 1889 the director of the court thea- 
tre in that capital began to present these dramas 
upon a specially prepared stage. The omissions 
made were merely such as good taste demanded. 
Only a moderate use was made of stage furnish- 
ings and decorative effects. There were no waits 
between the scenes, and but slight ones between 
the acts. This special stage was called "die Shake- 
speare-Biihne," the Shakespeare stage. It consisted 
essentially of a stage divided into front and back 
portions, like the Elizabethan. The front stage 
remained unchanged in appearance throughout 
the play ; the back stage could be shut off by a 
separate curtain. This double stage, with modera- 
tion in the use of stage furnishings, permitted 
a rapid succession of front scenes, and a rapid 
alternation of front and back scenes. 1 The acting 
and elocution were made prominent, not the scene- 
painting and rich setting. It was found that a 
whole play of Shakespeare makes an impression 
which is very different from that produced by the 
selected parts and tableau effects to which the mod- 
ern stage has accustomed us. One writer tells us 
that, when " Julius Caesar was presented in its 
entirety, III. iii., the scene with the poet Cinna, 
showed itself to be both a scene of great power and 
a helpful part of the action, because it makes the 
audience realize vividly the terrible " mischief " 

1 R. Gen£e, Die Entwickelung des scenischen Theaters und die 
Buhnenreform in Munchen, Stuttgart, 1889, gives a description of 
the Shakespeare stage, also a picture and a floor plan. 



136 SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE 

that is " afoot." The presentations upon the 
" Shakespeare stage " offered an abundance of plea- 
sure and instruction for the students of the great 
dramatist, and many were enthusiastic over the re- 
form. 

But certain disadvantages came with the gains 
of the new stage. The modern theatre-goer loves 
brilliant stage effects, and some of Shakespeare's 
plays make a somewhat bare and inadequate im- 
pression without the use of more elaborate accesso- 
ries than the Shakespeare stage can accommodate. 

Thus, in the first play put upon the Shakespeare 
stage, " King Lear," it was not possible to give full 
visible expression to the telling contrast between 
the kingly glory of Lear and his later misery. This 
was a failing that leaned to virtue's side, since the 
emphasis was thrown with just so much more force 
upon the speaking and the acting, and upon the 
responsive imagination of the audience. In order 
to meet this difficulty, however, the same man who 
worked out the details of the Shakespeare stage, 
Herr Lautenschlager, invented a revolving stage, 
and this is now in use at Miinchen. 1 This device 
consists in the main of a great turntable, having a 
diameter nearly as large as that of the entire 
stage. While one half of this circular stage is 
turned toward the audience and a scene is being 
presented upon it, the other half, turned from the 

1 See the account of Dr. von Possart, Jahrbuch of the German 
Shakespeare Society, vol. xxxvii. (1901), pp. xviii-xxxvi. The 
date when the revolving stage was first used is not given. 



AND MODERN ADAPTATIONS 137 

audience, is being prepared for its next scene. It 
takes but a few seconds to revolve the new setting 
of the hidden portion of the stage into its place 
when it is wanted. Waits are done away with, 
but at the same time all desirable stage setting 
can be provided. 

To go outside of the spoken drama for an illus- 
tration of the advantages of the revolving stage, 
Mozart's opera " Cosi fan tutte " is said to have been 
practically banished from the theatre before the 
employment of this new device, because of the many 
difficult changes of scene called for. If this opera 
were properly presented upon the usual stage, the 
waits between the various acts and scenes would 
amount to a full hour. By the aid of the revolving 
stage this time was reduced to a minute and one half. 
A great turntable of this kind, with the electric 
apparatus by which it is controlled, is costly ; but 
this expense is largely offset by the fact that the 
labor of a very few persons, assisted by simple 
mechanical devices, is sufficient in every ordinary 
case to prepare the invisible rear portion of the 
stage promptly and well for the coming scene. 

The director of the Miinchen court theatre, Dr. 
von Possart, declared in 1901 that the revolving 
stage had proved very successful, that a larger 
theatre was likely to be constructed containing this 
device, and that this invention promised to be " the 
stage of the future." 

So far as concerns the novelty of this invention, 
however, we are compelled to say with Chaucer : — 



138 SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE 

1 ' There nis no newe gyse, that it nas old." 

The Japanese theatre has the revolving stage, and 
presumably has employed it for a very long period. 
While only a portion of this stage is ordinarily 
visible to the Japanese audience, the whole of it can 
be made use of at times when a distant view or a 
long perspective is desired. 1 A Japanese acquaint- 
ance of the writer has often wondered at the fact 
that outside of his own nation he has never met 
with this simple and effective device. 

The assertion is freely made that if Shakespeare 
were now writing plays, he would so plan them as 
to employ all the resources of the modern theatre. 
Undoubtedly he would. It is also maintained that 
we should present his dramas in the present manner 
and with all the means at our disposal. This seems 
reasonable, at first view. But we have noted that 
some features of these productions were shaped or 
even created by the nature of the stage for which 
they were written. Shall such features be pre- 
served or given up? Should we have at these points 
what Shakespeare wrote, or what some modern 
manager chooses to make out of the same materials ? 
Probably we shall accept many compromises. The 
great advantage of the revolving stage is that it en- 
ables us to secure abundant and effective stage set- 
ting and decorations without loss of time, and there- 
fore without at the same time compelling us to cut 

1 The writer is indebted to his former pupil Dr. Kichero Yuasa, 
and to Dr. Toyokichi Iyenaga of the University of Chicago, for the 
information about the Japanese theatre. 



AND MODERN ADAPTATIONS 139 

down Shakespeare's text. But some questions re- 
main to be settled. Should we insist on presenting 
scenes which were probably inserted merely to fur- 
nish time for setting the back stage ? even the in- 
artistic Scene vi. Act III. of " Richard III.," and 
the wholly superfluous though interesting Scene i. 
Act III. of "Antony and Cleopatra"? In these 
two cases at least, it seems clear that the scenes 
should be omitted. Again, shall we be satisfied to 
bring a scene to a close in the midst of a powerful 
situation, in the modern manner, when this is en- 
tirely contrary to Shakespeare's intention? Each 
case deserves to be considered by itself ; but my 
own preference would be as a ride, when there is a 
clash between the very structure of a scene or play 
and modern methods of presentation, to adhere to 
the art-form of Shakespeare. 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF ENGLISH 
SOUNDS 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF ENGLISH 
SOUNDS * 

The first necessity, the first law, of all language 
is clearness. Aristotle and common sense tell us 
this. Clearness is a fundamental requirement in 
the expression of thought. " If the foundations be 
destroyed, what can the righteous do ? " 

A second necessity and law of language is some 
measure of conciseness, economy of effort. " The 
thread of the discourse " should not be drawn out 
" finer than the staple of the argument." Ease of 
utterance calls for some care in the arrangement 
of accents and pauses. Such arrangement gives us 
prose rhythm. But we seek pleasure from language, 
and not simply clearness and conciseness. Accord- 
ing to " the law of the nearest," language may have 
been the earliest as it is the finest of the fine arts. 
Poetry chooses in each tongue some additional prin- 
ciple of form which gives to language special beauty 
and power. In Hebrew there is parallelism ; in an 
English poem we have some time-and-accent unit, 
giving verse rhythm. 

1 The present article is in the main a reprint of one in The 
Atlantic Monthly for April, 1895, " The Expressive Power of Eng- 
lish Sounds." Some material has been incorporated from an earlier 
paper, " The Laws of Tone-Color in the English Language," The 
Andover Review, March, 1887. 



144 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

We must notice one more characteristic of artis- 
tic language before we come to our subject proper. 
The scientist asks only for the accepted, literal 
meaning of each word. The artist asks further : 
What is its history ? What company has it kept ? 
If it once bore a bad character, but has reformed, 
how long since it was received into good society ? 
Does it sometimes forget its new surroundings, and, 
so to speak, wear its hat in the parlor ? If the word 
has thoroughly reformed, or always borne a good 
character, what are its present tendencies ? In its 
many different uses, are there any degrading or 
trivial offices which it performs? By all this in- 
terrogation, we mean that the artist considers the 
history, associations, and affinities of a word as 
truly as its simple, dictionary meaning. The neces- 
sity that the writer's words shall suggest what he 
wishes to have suggested, as well as express what 
he wishes to have expressed, we may call the law 
of suggestiveness. 

But the artist may question this personified word 
as to its intrinsic as well as its accepted character ; 
he may scan the lines of its face, and seek to learn 
its very nature and fibre. He may say, " My faith- 
ful servant, I cannot use you with the greatest 
effect known to language unless both your accepted 
and your real character mark you out as the word 
for my thought." That is to say, those words can 
be used most effectively whose accepted meanings 
coincide with and are reinforced by the natural ex- 
pressive power of the sounds which compose them. 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 145 

The question whether the sounds of the English 
language have each a peculiar expressional value, 
a natural significance, is a topic on which a great 
deal has been written, — much of it nonsense, to 
speak in the bold manner of Carlyle. It is per- 
haps the failure to discriminate between very differ- 
ent kinds of expressiveness in the use of sounds that 
has led many to believe that the whole subject is 
entirely vague and personal, incapable of anything 
approximating accurate treatment. But let us see 
if there are not some clear lines of distinction of 
which we can be certain. 

Who can be deaf to the force of these sounds ? 

" I saw their starved lips in the gloom 
With horrid warning gaped wide." 

Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci. 

Is not one element of expression in these lines the 
muscular imitation in the widely parted lips of the 
sympathetic reader as he utters the words in italics, 
especially gaped, if the first vowel is pronounced 
with the sound of a in father f That we have 
striking instances of muscular imitation in the fol- 
lowing cases will be plain to the attentive reader : 

" That bubble, they were bent on blowing big, 
He had blown already till he burst his cheeks.' , 

Browning, The Ring and the Book, II. 450-1. 

" Where with puff'd cheek the belted hunter blew 
His wreathed bugle-horn." 

Tennyson, The Palace of Art. 

" Mute in the midst, the whole man one amaze." 

The Ring and the Book, II. 118. 

" Now, the prim, pursed-up mouth's protruded lips." 

Ibid. XL 1132. 



146 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

To ask the gentle reader to find distinct muscu- 
lar imitation in his reading of the following pas- 
sages is rather daring, but he must admit that his 
jaws fly open in a very expressive fashion : — 

" Hell at last 
Yawning receiv'd them whole, and on them clos'd." 

Paradise Lost, VI. 874-5. 
11 Spaces of fire, and all the yawn of hell." 

Keats, Hyperion, I. 120. 

In metaphorical uses of the word swallow, the 
conception is usually that of engulfing something 
rather than of deglutition. The wide separation of 
the lips and their quick return give to this word 
great natural expressiveness. 

" Though all our glory extinct, and happy state 

Here swallowed up in endless misery." 

Paradise Lost, I. 141-2. 
" Whether he first sees light 

Where the river in gleaming rings 

Sluggishly winds through the plain ; 

Whether in sound of the swallowing sea — 

As is the world on the banks, 

So is the mind of the man." 

Matthew Arnold, The Future. 

Every reader will feel that the imaginary strug- 
gle of Clarence is imitated as well as narrated in 
the following words : — 

" The envious flood 
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth 
To seek the empty, vast and wandering air ; 
But smother'd it within my panting bulk, 
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea." 

Richard III., I. iv. 37-41. 

The imitative effect of the following lines, as 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 147 

they go tip-tonguing through the mouth, must be 
plain to all : — 

" Come, and trip it as you go 
On the light fantastic toe." 

Milton, L' Allegro. 

It is plain, then, that the sounds of language 
are sometimes expressive through what we may call 
muscular imitation, — an approximate imitation by 
the muscles employed in articulation of some shape 
or some motion. A more exact name, but also a 
more clumsy one, would be articulatory imitation. 
Much more common than this is what we may call 
muscular analogy, or muscular symbolism. Pope 
says, in a passage that has been quoted almost to 
death, — 

" When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, 
The line too labours, and the words move slow." 

An Essay on Criticism, 370-1. 

The action of the organs of articulation as they pro- 
nounce the troublesome consonant combinations in 
the first of these lines is not an imitation of the 
muscular effort of Ajax as he tugs at the mighty 
stone, but the struggle in the mouth is analogous to 
the striving of the hero, and is highly expressive. 

When it is said of Isolt, meeting Tristram, that 
she " Belted his body with her white embrace " 
("The Last Tournament"), the energetic conso- 
nants express the energy of the action, though the 
irregular accent upon the first syllable of the line 
is a still more effective feature. The phrase " the 
wrestling thews that throw the world " (" The 



148 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

Princess," VII.) has greater power of expression 
than the dictionary can explain. 

The line to be cited next is, in strictness, a case 
of expressive versification, not of the expressiveness 
of the sounds and sound-groups in themselves con- 
sidered. Pompilia, as she escapes, glides 

" Ghost-like from great dark room to great dark room." 
The Ring and the Book, III. 1073. 

The even fall of the syllables, caused by the uni- 
form action of the muscles of breathing and of 
the voice, symbolizes the even fall of the gliding 
feet ; but this analogy comes out in the movement 
of the line, not in the expressiveness of the sounds 
in themselves considered. In many passages the 
versification and the sounds are both expressive. 
In the following line expression is given by the un- 
expected accent on plumb, and also by the nature 
of the sounds in the word : — 

i( Fluttering his pennons vain plumb down he drops." 

Paradise Lost, II. 933. 

In the next passage, the irregular accent on dropt 
and the abrupt close of the word impress upon us 
the violence of the shock which puts an end to 
Vulcan's fall, and lames him forever : — 

" From morn 
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, 
A summer's day ; and with the setting sun 
Dropt from the zenith like a falling" star, 
On Lemnos th' -<Egean isle." 

Paradise Lost, I. 742-6. 

The line that follows furnishes a striking in- 
stance of muscular analogy : — 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 149 

" Here 's a knife, clip quick — it 's a sign of grace." 

Browning, Holy-Cross Day. 

We have now noticed two kinds of expression 
through speech-sounds, and have suggested for 
them the names " muscular imitation " and " mus- 
cular analogy." Let us take up next the common 
phenomenon of sound-imitation, or, to give its 
learned name, onomatopoeia. 

Imitative effects in language are, of course, only 
approximate ; they can never be perfect. The names 
ichippoorwill and cuckoo (European) are highly 
successful imitations of the notes of those birds. 
All persons feel the force of the line, — ■ 

" And murmuring of innumerable bees." 

The Princess, VII. 

It is stated that the makers of the great diction- 
ary of the English Philological Society found the 
number of distinctly imitative words that begin 
with the letter 6 to be unexpectedly large. The 
strongly explosive quality given to that letter by 
the energetic springing apart of the lips seems to 
fit it for many onomatopoetic effects. In bow-wow 
we have both muscular imitation and sound-imita- 
tion. 

Concerning the sage elders of the Trojans, we 
are told in Bryant's translation of the Iliad : — 

11 Beside the gates they sat, unapt, through age, 
For tasks of war, but men of fluent speech, 
Like the cicadas that within the wood 
Sit on the trees and utter delicate sounds." 

III. 183-91. 



150 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

The specific word in this last line is delicate; 
the accented vowel of the word is e, a small, light 
vowel with a high natural pitch ; the similar vowels 
of sit and trees reinforce this effect. The words 
sounds and utter have vowels of low natural pitch, 
but these are generic expressions, in the use of 
which the poet seems to have no choice. Surely 
the sensitive reader will feel that, while all the 
words of the last line are intended by the poet 
translator to be effective as words, in accordance 
with their accepted meanings, the light, high- 
pitched vowels of sit, trees, and delicate are in- 
tended also to imitate the shrill note of the cicada. 
For a passage in which low-pitched vowels are used 
imitatively, call to mind these lines from " Mac- 
beth":— 

" Ere to black Hecate's summons 
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums 
Hath rung* night's yawning peal, there shall be done 
A deed of dreadful note." 

III. ii. 41-4. 

Here the imitative force is especially concentrated 
in drowsy hums. 

The booming of the giant breakers changes to 
the hissing and spattering of the spray as they are 
shattered upon the shore, in this line : — 

" Roar'd as when the roaring breakers boom and blanch on the 
precipices." 

Tennyson, Boadicea. 

The most subtle form of expression through the 
sounds of language remains to be considered. It is 
what has sometimes been termed tone-color ; it will 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 151 

often be called here sound-analogy, or sound-symbol- 
ism. We have felt its force in some of the extracts 
that have been considered. In the line concerning 
the cicadas, which 

" Sit on the trees and utter delicate sounds," 

there is more than sound-imitation. The light, 
high-pitched vowels here used are small vowels ; 
the air is compressed through a very small passage 
in shaping these sounds. The smallness of the 
vowels symbolizes the smallness of the cicadas. 
The writer once heard Mr. Aldrich speak of the 
effectiveness of using delicate as metrically equiva- 
lent to two syllables. In this case, there is sound- 
symbolism both in the dainty, high-pitched vowels 
of the word, and in using its three short syllables 
as equivalent to two ordinary ones. In the passage 
already cited from " Macbeth," at the same time 
that the dark, low-pitched vowels imitate the dull 
humming of " the shard-borne beetle," they also 
symbolize the mystery of the night and the awful- 
ness of the coming crime. 

The tone-color, or quality, of any vowel sound 
is that peculiarity which distinguishes it from 
another of the same pitch and intensity. The cause 
of the quality of a sound, its tone-color, is found in 
the number and prominence of the overtones, or 
harmonics, which are combined with the funda- 
mental, or pitch-determining tone. The differences 
between the various vowel sounds, when produced 
by the same voice and at the same pitch, are dif- 



152 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

ferences in tone-color. Different musical instru- 
ments, such as the violin, the piano, the cornet, the 
clarinet, have each a peculiar expression because 
of their generic differences in tone-color, quality. 
Hence it is entirely reasonable that the specific 
differences between the vowel sounds of the same 
voice may give to each particular vowel a peculiar 
expressional value. That is, o (as in gold), because 
of its peculiarities as a sound, may naturally sym- 
bolize and express certain ideas which e (feel) does 
not by its nature express, and which e in arbitrary, 
accepted combinations does not, to the sensitive 
reader, equally well express. 

This view is not opposed to the teachings of 
such writers as Professor Whitney, as these are set 
forth, for example, in the well-known work " Lan- 
guage and the Study of Language." Professor 
Whitney considers the origin and growth of lan- 
guage ; we accept it as something given : for him 
language is an instrument answering utilitarian 
ends ; for us it answers aesthetic ends. 

Let us arrange the English vowel sounds in the 
following scale : — 



1 


(little) 


* (I) 


67) (wood) 


e 


(met) 


u (due) 


ow (cow) 


si 


(mat) 


all (what) 


o (gold) 


e 


(mete) 


ah (father) 


oo (gloom) 


.*ii 


(fair) 


oi (boil) 


aw (awe) 



a (mate) u (but) 

The sounds at the beginning of this scale are 
especially fitted to express uncontrollable joy and 
delight, gayety, triviality, rapid movement, bright- 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 153 

ness, delicacy, and physical littleness ; the sounds 
at the end are peculiarly adapted to express hor- 
ror, solemnity, awe, deep grief, slowness of motion, 
darkness, and extreme or oppressive greatness of 
size. The scale runs, then, from the little to the 
large, from the bright to the dark, from ecstatic 
delight to horror, and from the trivial to the sol- 
emn and awful. In this table short and long vowel- 
sounds and diphthongs have been mingled ; for 
many purposes of expression, however, the short 
and long vowel-sounds are distinctly contrasted 
with each other, and it is not claimed that the scale 
follows an exact and inflexible natural order of 
sounds. 

This vowel-table follows a physiological order. 
In uttering the first vowels in the series, we feel 
that they are shaped or modified by the front of 
the tongue, that they are formed in the front part 
of the mouth. Beginning with 7, every vowel, and 
at least one of the sounds in each diphthong, re- 
ceives its especial modification, or shaping, from 
the back of the tongue, and is recognized by us as 
made in the back of the mouth. If the so-called 
u visible speech " symbols of Professor A. M. Bell 
are employed, these facts are given visible expres- 
sion. 

A recognized principle of elocution helps to con- 
firm the general truth of this scale. The vowels 
have been arranged, on the whole, in accordance 
with what is called natural, or inherent pitch. 
What is this quality termed natural pitch ? If a 



154 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

person utters the various English vowels in a purely 
natural, neutral tone, with no thought concerning 
the location of the sounds upon the musical scale, 
the various vowels will differ slightly in pitch. 
Singers know also that a high pitch is more easily 
reached with some vowels and a low pitch with 
others. Hence phoneticians recognize each vowel 
sound as having a certain inherent or natural pitch 
as compared with the others. The above table fol- 
lows substantially the order of inherent pitch as 
given by Sweet and others. The sounds at the 
beginning of the list have a high natural pitch ; 
the ideas and feelings which find their most fitting 
expression through these vowels are those which 
all elocutionists would express by the use of a high 
pitch. The sentiments that are assigned to the 
vowels of low natural pitch are brought out by a 
low pitch in expressive reading. What is more 
natural than that the individual vowel sounds 
shall be felt to be, according to their natural pitch, 
the best sound-representatives of these various feel- 
ings and ideas ? 

Perhaps the English language has never known 
a more skillful artist in the use of sound-effects 
than Tennyson. A phrase in Browning's " Ring 
and the Book," " a gleam i' the gloom " (II. 322), 
may have suggested the vowel-contrasts of this 
song : — 

" Rainbow, stay, 
Gleam upon gloom, 
Bright as my dream, 
Rainbow, stay ! 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 155 

But it passes away, 
Gloom upon gleam, 
Dark as my doom — 
O rainbow, stay ! " 

Becket, III. i. 

Here, gleam, bright, dream, are set over against 
gloom, dark, doom. " The Holy Grail " has this 
effective vowel-contrast : — 

" For every moment glanced 
His silver arms and gloom'd, so quick and thick 
The lightnings." 

LI. 492-4. 

Of course, poets often do not make use of con- 
trasted vowels when the contrast of ideas would 
justify them in doing so. Thus Lowell has the 
line, — 

" The painted windows, frecking gloom with glow." 

The Cathedral. 

In the following quotations illustrating the gen- 
eral scale, observe the fitness between the vowel 
sounds and the ideas expressed. Shallow orders 
in " II. Henry IV." " a joint of mutton and any 
■pretty little tiny kickshaws." Ophelia does not 
wish Laertes to advise her virtuously, and then 
imitate the " reckless libertine," who 

" Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, 
And recks not his own rede." 

The description of Queen Mab and her chariot 
in " Romeo and Juliet," I. iv., expresses physical 
littleness and daintiness. All through the passage 
the accented, high, light vowels are felt to be the 
most telling. Who can be insensible to the color- 



156 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

ing of " In shape no bigger than an agate-stone," 
and " Drawn with a team of little atomies " ? 

Drayton's names for the dainty elves who wait 
upon Queen Mab are interesting : — 

" Hop, and Mop, and Drap so clear, 
Pip, and Trip, and Skip, that were 
To Mab their sovereign dear, 

Her special maids of honor ; 
Fib, and Tib, and Pinck, and Pin, 
Tick, and Quick, and Jill, and Jin, 
Tit, and Nit, and Wap, and Win, 
The train that wait upon her.' , 

Nymphidia. 

The following line from Keats's "Eve of St. 
Agnes " shows how the upper part of the scale can 
express delicacy : — 

" And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon." 

Leigh Hunt comments thus : " Here is delicate 
modulation, and super-refined epicurean nicety ! " 
One is compelled to "read the line delicately, 
and at the tip-end, as it were, of his tongue." 
The lingual consonants help in this effect, which 
is so marked that Hunt need not have said "as 
it were." 

A few passages expressive of littleness and con- 
tempt need no comment : — 

" Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou ! " 

The Taming of the Shrew, IV. iii. 110. 

*' He hath but a little wee face, with a little yellow beard." 
Merry Wives of Windsor, I. iv. 22-3. 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 157 

" Beneath, the tides of day and night 
With flame and darkness ridge 
The void, as low as where this earth 
Spins like a fretful midge. 1 ' 1 

Rossetti, The Blessed Damozel. 

Shakespeare uses a number of light-colored, 
often interjectional words, to express worthlessness, 
triviality, or contempt. Any one will appreciate 
this who will look up in his Shakespeare, by the 
help of a concordance, such words as tilly-fally, 
tilly-vally, tiddle-taddle, fibble-fabble, pribbles 
and prabbles, tittle-tattling, kicky-wicky, and bib- 
ble-babble. " A fiddle-pin's end ! " and " this rab- 
ble's brabble," occur in " The King and the Book." 
We have in English many compound words with 
the vowels % and a to which a petty force attaches, 
such as chit-chat, fiddle-faddle, dilly-dally, knick- 
knack, riff-raff, etc. There does not seem to be 
so much contempt or pettiness expressed by any 
one of our similar formations containing a darker 
vowel, as tip-top, sing-song, ding-dong, see-saw, 
etc. 

An entire poem in light vowels and dainty con- 
sonant-effects, by Mr. Edgar Fawcett, appeared in 
"The Atlantic Monthly" for June, 1880. We 
quote a good portion of this delicious little mono- 
chrome. 

MAIDENHAIR 

When deep in some dim glade we pause, 
Perchance we mark how winds caress 

These lowly sprays of quivering gauze, 
Aerial in their slenderness. 



158 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

The ruffled leaves of vapory green 

Fringe mimic branches, fine as thread, 

Above slim stems whose ebon sheen 
Is always mellowing into red. 



I half am tempted, while I gaze, 

To question of my wondering thought 

If silvery whispers of the breeze 

Have found, as through the woods they went, 

In your phantasmal delicacies 
Ethereal embodiment ! 

Dr. Guest, in his " History of English Khythms," 
tells us : " Shakespeare seems to have affected the 
short vowels and particularly the short i, when he 
had to describe any quickness of motion." This 
is natural. Large bodies move slowly and heavily, 
and their motion is best described and symbol- 
ized by slow, heavy vowels ; but quick movement 
calls for short, light vowels. 

Let us turn to the lower part of the scale. Of 
course, whole poems will not be heavily shaded. 
That would be intolerable. Only emphatic words, 
phrases, and passages need be dark because the 
thought is dark ; and even there sound-analogy may 
be disregarded in favor of more important prin- 
ciples. These lines from Addison's "Cato" are 
darker than the mere counting of the dark sylla- 
bles would show : — 

" The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, 
And heavily in clouds brings on the day." 

We must weigh rather than count. Notice from 
« Othello," — 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 159 

" On horror's head horrors accumlate ; " 

III. iii. 370. 

and from Poe, — 

" 'T is the vault of thy lost Ulalume ! " 

and — 

" the lonesome October 
Of my most immemorial year." 

Perhaps the difference between the force of the 
two extremes of the vowel-scale can be best felt if 
one reads the same passage in two ways, first pro- 
longing the high vowels with great emphasis and 
hurrying over the low ones, then doing the reverse. 
For instance : — 

" No longer mourn for me when I am dead 
Than you shall hear the surly sullen 6e//." 

The long vowels in the closing stanza of Tenny- 
son's " Requiescat " contrast noticeably with some 
expressive short vowels in the opening stanza of 
the lyric which stands next in our editions of the 
poet : — 

11 And fairer she, but ah, how soon to die ! 

Her quiet dream of life this hour may cease. 
Her peaceful being" slowly passes by 
To some more perfect peace." 

THE SAILOR BOY 

He rose at dawn and, fired with hope, 

Shot o'er the seething harhour-har, 
And reach'd the ship and caught the rope, 

And whistled to the morning star. 

The abrupt shortness of struts &ndi frets is very 
expressive in a well-known line of " Macbeth " : — 



160 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

" Life 's but a walking* shadow, a poor player 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage 
And then is heard no more." 

V. v. 24-6. 

The most dissonant and unpleasing of all the 
vowel sounds in English is that of a mjlat, rang. 
Harshness and dissonance of all kinds are expressed 
by this sound. The third division of " The Bells" 
rings with the twanging, jangling, wrangling 
clamor and clangor of the brazen bells. With 
equal force Browning says of certain lawyers : — 

" Thus wrangled, brangled, jangled they a month." 
The King and the Book, I. 238. 

Tennyson uses this sound to set forth the harslr 
appearance of all nature after the death of Arthur : 

" And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain 
On the bald street breaks the blank day." 

In Memoriam, vii. 

Professor Genung notes " the harsh sibilants " in 
the first of these lines, and " the intentionally hard 
alliteration and utter want of rhythm " in the sec- 
ond. How abundant and forcible is the sound- 
symbolism here ! 

The brassy dissonance of this so-called short a 
makes it very effective in some cases of sound- 
imitation. It is combined in the following passage 
with the sA, of which I speak later : — 

" Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash 
Of battle-axes on shatter'd helms, and shrieks 
After the Christ." 

Tennyson, The Passing of Arthur, 109-11. 

The vowels especially fitted to symbolize rich- 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 161 

ness, abundance, complete satisfaction, fullness of 
beauty, and kindred ideas, are o, ah, 55, 5w, 1 (as 
in mine). These are peculiarly rich, sensuous im- 
pressions. Smooth, prolongable consonants, espe- 
cially the semi-vowels, liquids, and nasals, add to 
the effect. 

" Heav'n open'd wide 
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound 
On golden hinges moving." 

Paradise Lost, VII. 205-7. 

" Hear the mellow wedding bells, 

Golden bells ! 
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells ! 
Through the balmy air of night 
How they ring out their delight ! 
From the molten-golden notes, 

And all in tune, 
What a liquid ditty floats 
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats 

On the moon ! 
Oh, from out the sounding cells 
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells ! " 

Poe, The Bells. 

Turning now to the consonant sounds, we find 
that these can be divided with some fitness into 
two classes, which may be called momentary and 
prolonged consonants. Those which are most dis- 
tinctly momentary are the voiceless stops p, t, k; 
next may be placed h, wh,f, ih (as in thin) ; next 
to these the voiced stops b, d, g. The prolonged 
consonants are very numerous : w, y, I, r, z, zh 
( = s in azure), s, sh, m, n, ng, v, ih (as in then). 
Strictly speaking, it is as easy to prolong f and ih 
(thin) as the corresponding voiced sounds v and ih 



162 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

(then?) ; but the latter pair are decidedly more 
soft and clinging in their effect. 

In the production of the momentary consonants, 
especially all except the voiced stops, &, d, g, the 
muscular action is very intense and the release of 
the organs very marked ; hence the explosive effect 
of these consonants is very decided. Not arbitra- 
rily, then, but naturally and necessarily, the sounds 
p, t, h) h, wh, f, and th (thin) express boldness, 
precipitation, unexpectedness, vigor, determination, 
explosive passion, and forcible and startling ef- 
fects of all kinds. They must be the initial con- 
sonants of accented syllables in order to have their 
full expressional value. Combinations of these let- 
ters, as st, sp, etc., have much the same force. 

" Brazen bells ! 
What a world of terror now their turbulency tells ! % 
In the startled ear of night 
How they scream out their affright ! " 

Poe, The Bells. 

" A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars." 

Tennyson, Morte d'Arthur. 

" Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse, 
Meet and ne'er part till one drop down a corse." 

I Henry IV., IV. i. 122-3. 

" My good blade carves the casques of men, 
My tough lance thrusteth sure, 
My strength is as the strength of ten, 



The splinter' d spear-shafts crack and fly." 

Tennyson, Sir Galahad. 

Sometimes great power is given to a single mo- 
mentary consonant. 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 163 

" But somewhere, out of human view, 
Whate'er thy hands are set to do 
Is wrought with tumult of acclaim." 

Tennyson, In Memoriam, lxxv. 

" Such and so grew these holy piles, 
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles." 

Emerson, The Problem. 

" Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east." 

Morte d' Arthur. 

The voiced stops &, c7, g, give less startling 
and powerful effects than the more decided mo- 
mentary consonants just considered. At times, 
when many voiced stops are associated, especially 
if they are contrasted with voiceless stops used 
immediately before or after, the effect is quite 
subdued. In " The King and the Book, " the patri- 
arch Noah is represented as saying concerning the 
returned dove : — 

" Though this one breast by miracle return, 
No wave rolls by, in all the waste, but bears 
Within it some dead dove-like thing as dear, 
Beauty made blank and harmlessness destroyed." 

XII. 480-3. 
Swinburne speaks of 

" some dead lute-player 
That in dead years had done delicious things." 

A Ballad of Life. 

In distinction from the momentary consonants, 
those which we have called prolonged are soft, 
mild, and pleasing. Note the dainty contrast in 
these lines : — 

" To watch across the stricken chords 
Your rosy-twinkling fingers flee ! 
Or woo you in soft woodland words, 
With woodland pipe, Autonoe ! " 

Dobson, To a Greek Girl. 



164 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

L and r, more distinctly than the other pro- 
longed consonants, express softness, smoothness, 
liquidity, love, longing, lingering, and (forgive the 
anti-climax !) laziness. Other prolonged sounds re- 
inforce this effect, and save the artist from using 
the energetic voiceless stops and spirants. 

" Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, 
Elaine the lily maid of Astolat." 

Tennyson, Lancelot and Elaine, 1-2. 

" Philomel, with melody 
Sing in our sweet lullaby ; 
Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby." 

A Midsummer-Night's Dream, II. ii. 13-15. 

A second division of the consonant sounds is 
into those which are voiceless (whispered) and 
those which are voiced (accompanied by voice, the 
vibration of the vocal chords). The whispered con- 
sonants are the stops p, t, k, the spirants /and th 
{thin), and the sounds wh, h, s, and sh. The four 
last sounds are in the imitative words hush and 
whisper. The whispered sounds may be used effec- 
tively in expressing fear, secrecy, deception, cau- 
tion, mystery, and all other ideas and emotions 
which naturally take the whisper. 

Certain consonant sounds are especially rich, 
smooth, and pleasing. Such are z and zh, as in 
easy, azure, pleasure. Indeed, all the prolonged 
consonants may with some fitness be called rich, 
pleasing sounds, with the exception of r, when given 
its rough or consonantal pronunciation, s, and sh ; 
these three sounds will be touched upon later. The 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 165 

consonants s, zh, I, r, and w are peculiarly soft and 
pleasant. 

Sh is decidedly the most unpleasant consonant 
effect in English. Bacon says that " the noise of 
screech-owls hath resemblance with the letter sh." 
The brazen bells " can only shriek, shriek, shriek " 
(" The Bells "). Because sh is a whispered sound, 
it is also fitted to express fear, mystery, and allied 
ideas. 

" And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on my heart as 

I heard 
The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering 

night." 

Tennyson, Maud, I. iv. 

Thus every English sound has some special ex- 
pressive force. Also, since a sound may have many 
striking characteristics, it may have more than one 
natural expression. The reader will surely think, 
now, that he has encountered a mounted special- 
ist, riding his hobby to death. But let him consider 
that although the explosive quality of initial h gives 
it expressiveness in 

" Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse, 
Meet and ne'er part till one drop down a corse," 

I. Henry IV., IV. i. 122-3. 

the same sound is also a guttural whisper, expres- 
sive of mystery, terror, etc., in the line, — 

" An hideous Geaunt, horrible and hye." 

Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I. vii. 8. 

Other guttural sounds and other whispered ones 
may have similar force. Note the following lines : 



166 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

" A hell as hopeless and as full of fear 
As are the blasted banks of Erebus, 
Where shaking ghosts with ever-howling groans 
Hover about the ugly ferryman." 

Marlowe, First Part of Tamburlaine, V. 243-6. 

A sensitive reader will not always read the same 
sound in the same way. Lowell tells us, in his 
essay on Dryden, that the sibilants of our language 
can be made either to hiss or to sing. S should 
be prolonged in reading when intended to be un- 
pleasant. When nicely articulated and not pro- 
longed, it often expresses delicate, musical effects. 

" And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back 
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath 
That the rude sea grew civil at her song, 
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, 
To hear the sea-maid's music." 

A Midsummer-Night's Dream, II. i. 150-4. 

" Valeria, attend : I have a lovely love, 
As bright as is the heaven crystalline, 
As fair as is the milk-white way of Jove, 
As chaste as Phoebe in her summer sports. 
As soft and tender as the azure down 
That circles Cytherea's silver doves." 

The Taming of a Shrew, 1594, Anonymous, 

Bankside Shakespeare, vol. ii. p. 190. 

In the case of f, what is called its rough, or con- 
sonantal value is exactly opposite in expressive 
power to its smooth, or vocalic utterance. 

i ' Others with vast Typhcean rage more fell 
Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air 
In whirlwind." 

Paradise Lost, II. 539-41. 

" And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee." 

Tennyson, Godiva. 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 167 

In the awful curse which King Lear pronounces 
upon Groneril, how expressive is the word thwart I 
The interference and struggle of tongue, teeth, and 
lips, with which the word begins, are a powerful 
symbol of the moral perversity which Lear prays 
may inhabit the child of Goneril. 

" If she must teem, 
Create her child of spleen ; that it may live, 
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her ! " 

King Lear, I. iv. 303-5. 

In contrast with thivart, the powerful word dis- 
natured gets little of its impressiveness through 
sound-symbolism. 

In many passages in which the sounds employed 
are plainly significant, it is impossible to say just 
how much of the expression is due to each of the 
four sources that we have discussed, — muscular 
imitation, muscular analogy, sound-imitation, and 
sound-analogy. Some instances of this have already 
been noted. The first passage that we cited under 
muscular imitation is also a powerful illustration 
of sound-analogy : — 

" I saw their starv'd lips in the gloom 
With horrid warning gaped wide." 

The low-pitched vowels in these lines bring out the 
mysterious horror of the knight's dream. The very 
impressive word gloom takes no part in the muscu- 
lar imitation. In this line from Browning, describ- 
ing a quarrelsome household, — 

" Dog-snap and cat-claw, curse and counterblast," 

The Ring and the Book, II. 501. 



168 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

we undoubtedly have both muscular symbolism and 
sound-symbolism, one of them more prominent in 
the first half of the line, the other in the last half. 
Although the lines already cited, — 

" Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, 
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat," 

are strikingly effective in the way of sound-analogy, 
who shall say that the soft sounds have no trace of 
muscular analogy ; that they are not also intended 
to bring before us the modest gestures and gentle 
movements of the lily maid ? 

Sound-imitation and sound-analogy are both pre- 
sent in the striking contrast which follows : — 

" So far her voice flow'd on, like timorous brook 
That, lingering along a pebbled coast, 
Doth fear to meet the sea : but sea it met, 
And shudder'd ; for the overwhelming voice 
Of huge Enceladus swallow 'd it in wrath : 
The ponderous syllables, like sullen waves 
In the half -glutted hollows of reef -rocks, 
Came booming thus." 

Keats, Hyperion, II. 300-7. 

Every part of Poe's poem " The Bells " is both 
imitative and symbolic ; particular states of feel- 
ing are expressed by the same sounds that imitate 
the silver, golden, brazen, or iron bells, as they 
tinkle, chime, clang, or toll. Indeed, Poe wrote 
this poem consciously upon the distinct theory that 
those language sounds which best imitate some 
natural sound, here a bell of a particular tone, are 
intrinsically adapted to express at the same time 
certain allied emotions. This use of words and 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 169 

phrases both to serve as onomatopoetic imitations 
and to call up the appropriate accompanying emo- 
tions is a common device of all poets, and must 
convince us that the line cannot be drawn between 
simple sound-imitation, onomatopoeia, and the 
closely allied expression of emotion. To illustrate : 

" Friend ! but yesterday the bells 
Rang for thee their loud farewells ; 

And to-day they toll for thee, 
Lying dead beyond the sea." 

Longfellow, Bayard Taylor. 

It is interesting to express the vowel-coloring of 
" The Bells " in percentages. The constant repeti- 
tion of the word " bells " has been called almost fatal 
to the poem, and at any rate it is a common factor 
in all the parts. Let us omit this word, and enu- 
merate all the other accented syllables in the poem. 
Let us now fix attention upon the first seven vowels 
in the vowel-scale already given. In the first divi- 
sion of " The Bells," that of the tinkling sledge- 
bells, 75.5 per cent, of all the accented syllables 
contain one of these seven vowels ; in the second 
division, that of the golden wedding bells, 43.6 per 
cent, of the stressed syllables contain one of the 
vowels in question ; in the division of the brazen 
alarum bells, 66.2 per cent. ; and in the fourth, 
that of the tolling iron bells, 49.9 per cent. 

The words hoarse and croaks in the following 
passage are distinctly imitative, yet the sound-sym- 
bolism is the especial source of their impressiveness 
as sounds : — 



170 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

" The raven himself is hoarse 
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 
Under my battlements." 

Macbeth, I. v. 39-41. 

Lowell's comments upon this passage, in the essay 
" Shakespeare Once More," bring out other and 
more important factors in its power. 

Muscular analogy, sound-imitation, and sound- 
analogy seem all to be present in these craggy 
lines : — 

" Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves 
And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based 
His feet on juts of slippery crag* that rang 
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels." 

Tennyson, Morte d' Arthur. 

Is there any one principle to which all these four 
forms of sound-expressiveness can be reduced ? Cer- 
tainly most of the significant sound effects in lan- 
guage, and perhaps all of them, can be reduced 
ultimately to likeness of motion. This is more 
plainly true in the other cases than in those which 
come under sound-analogy. Is it not broadly true 
here ? The slow vibrations of the air in a funeral 
dirge and the solemn movements of the mourning 
train correspond to the slow vibrations, or motions, 
of the low-pitched vowels in speech. The quick 
motions of delight correspond to the rapid vibra- 
tions of the light, high-pitched vowels. 

Lest any one misunderstand, let it be said ex- 
plicitly that the accepted meanings of words should 
not be disregarded or tampered with in an effort 



THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 171 

to secure expressive sound effects. Sound-expres- 
sion, to be effective, should be added to the usual 
methods of expression ; it should not infringe upon 
them. The significant use of sounds is an important 
element in poetry ; in proportion as prose departs 
in spirit from poetry and approximates science, less 
use will naturally be made of the expressive power 
of sounds. 

Let the reader note, also, that we are not now 
concerned at all with sound effects that are simply 
pleasing, but with those that are significant ; we are 
discussing one method of expression ; we are not 
considering euphony. Swinburne is a writer who 
has a consuming passion for euphony, and a mar- 
velous capacity for securing it in his poetry ; Brown- 
ing tends always toward expressiveness. When 
Swinburne sings of the " lisp of leaves and ripple 
of rain," and of " a dead lute-player that in dead 
years had done delicious things," the effect is both 
euphonious and expressive ; but we feel that the 
sensuous charm of these phrases is what especially 
captivated their author, as it captivates us. 

It is not an unusual thing for a passage to win 
a sensuous charm at the expense of sound-expres- 
siveness. The alliteration in these lines from John 
Fletcher's " Melancholy," — 

1 ' Fountain-heads and pathless groves, 
Places which pale passion loves ! " 

gives us a sensuous pleasure. But this sound effect 
is decidedly vigorous ; it does not bring out the 
idea of dreamy melancholy. 



172 THE SYMBOLIC VALUE OF SOUNDS 

Although the sounds of English have changed 
some since the time of Shakespeare, yet the pas- 
sages here cited have not been materially affected 
by this. The Irish pronunciation of English is de- 
cidedly older in some respects than our present 
standard. When Pope sings, — 

" Here thou, great Anna ! whom three realms obey, 
Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea," 

The Kape of the Lock, III. 7-8. 

we must pronounce tay, with the Irishman, or lose 
the rhyme. In general, I hold that, whenever in 
the history of a language any sound or combination 
takes on a new pronunciation, all the words affected 
thereby become different poetic material because of 
the change, though for all ordinary purposes these 
words may well have the same value as before. 

The analytic tendency of modern thinking, the 
determination to leave nothing uninvestigated, to 
pluck the heart out of every mystery, often dis- 
pleases and even repels us. The writer has tried 
to investigate thoroughly the phenomena here dis- 
cussed ; but the fact is also appreciated that the 
human spirit can never be imprisoned in a for- 
mula ; that the mind of man, in any of its im- 
portant manifestations, will never be found out to 
perfection. 

Although much remains uncertain in connection 
with the subject of this inquiry, it is hoped that 
the reader is convinced that a delicate use of sound- 
symbolism is one of the innermost secrets of style. 






THE FINNISH " KALEVALA " AND 
THE EPIC QUESTION 



THE FINNISH "KALEVALA" AND THE 
EPIC QUESTION i 

The interesting and important work upon the epic 
of the Finns, the " Kalevala," by the Italian scholar 
Compare tti, appeared in Italian in 1891 and in 
German in 1892. It now presents itself to us in a 
smooth and comely English dress, and Mr. Andrew 
Lang makes the introduction. A complete English 
translation of the poem itself, by an American 
scholar, Mr. John Martin Crawford, was published 
at New York in 1888. 

The English translation of Comparetti violates 
literary ethics by appearing without an index, 
though the table of contents is somewhat full. 
Some page references will therefore be given. 

The " Kalevala " has usually been looked upon 
" as an ancient national epos, orally preserved by 
tradition, and collected from the mouths of the 
people, principally by Lonnrot " (p. 10). In point 
of fact it was in many ways constructed by Lonn- 
rot, not simply collected. The idea of combining 
the folk-songs of the Finns which treat the same or 
related subjects was first suggested to this scholar 

1 Revised from the Dial, August 15, 1899. The article was 
primarily a review of the English translation of Comparetti's 
work on the Kalevala, published by Longmans, with the title The 
Traditional Poetry of the Finns. 



176 THE FINNISH KALEVALA 

by the popular singers themselves, who feel free 
to combine several songs into a larger whole. Lonn- 
rot finally went far beyond this, and attempted to 
weave into a great unified poem all that was most 
interesting and significant in the entire mass of 
Finnish folk-poetry. To do this he made alterations 
in the ballads somewhat freely, though in most 
cases he either followed some one of the various 
versions of the particular song, or at least made 
changes that could easily be paralleled from the 
actual folk-poetry. The unity of the "Kalevala" 
thus obtained, however, is something very imper- 
fect ; sometimes there is very little attempt to unify 
the various stories (p. 144) ; at times fundamental 
inconsistencies have been allowed to remain (pp. 
148, 347 ff.) ; and what unity exists is often exter- 
nal rather than intrinsic. For example, the runes 
(songs) concerning Lemminkainen 1 are brought 
into a superficial connection with those about Wai- 
namoinen and Ilmarinen by making him join those 
two heroes in the expedition for the recovery of 
the Sampo. " A third companion often actually 
occurs in the songs of the people, but this is never 
Lemminkainen," except in a single fragment (pp. 
132, 135 n.). Chapter III. of Part I., « The Com- 
position of the 6 Kalevala,' " tells in detail just how 
Lonnrot built up the great poem from the materials 
furnished him in the folk-songs. This is perhaps the 
most interesting portion of the book. We learn 

1 The Finnish proper names are here given in the forms found 
in Crawford's translation. 



AND THE EPIC QUESTION 177 

here how it happens that the story of the making of 
the first harp from the bones of the great pike and 
of the exquisite singing of Wainamoinen (Runes 
40, 41) is followed later by an account of the loss 
of this harp (close of Rune 42), and the making 
of a second from the sacred birch-tree (Rune 44). 
In reality, no Finnish singer knows of two harps. 
The loss of the first instrument was a pure inven- 
tion of Lonnrot, in order that he might thereby 
weave into his poem another charming version of 
the origin of the harp. The changing of the tears 
of Wainamoinen into sea-pearls (Rune 41) is a 
striking incident which seems to have originated 
wholly with Lonnrot (p. 156 ; see also p. 257 
concerning the making of the Sampo). 

Lonnrot did not put any single rune into the 
" Kalevala " in just the form found in any partic- 
ular version. So far as possible in each case, all 
the best lines and passages from the various ren- 
derings were combined. Thus every incident occu- 
pies more space in the " Kalevala " than in any 
actual folk-song. The collection of Abercromby 1 
enables the lover of the " Kalevala" to study in 
English some of the original ballad-versions from 
which that epic was made. 

The magic song, or charm, is the fundamental 
product of Finnish folk-poetry (pp. 24, 187, 232) ; 
the interesting belief that one who recites correctly 

1 See the second volume of The Pre- and Proto-Historic Finns, 
John Abercromby, London, 1898. Vols. ix. and x. of The Grimm 
Library. 



178 THE FINNISH KALEVALA 

the account of the origin of any evil force takes 
away thereby its power for harm (pp. 27, 229) 
explains why these magic songs are narrative in 
form, and suggests in a strange way the wise philo- 
sophy of Bacon. The Finns are perhaps the only 
people who have produced poetry of a high degree 
of excellence while still believing in the universal 
efficacy of magic (p. 24). The aesthetic power of 
song seems to be a later conception (p. 321). The 
hero in this poetry is the wizard, the magician 
(pp. 172, 185, 230). The deeds of separate hero- 
wizards make up the poem ; "no peoples or social 
masses appear in collective action or in conflict" 
(pp. 22 f., 329). The thoroughly non-historical 
character of the "Kalevala" is a constant surprise 
to the student whose ideas have been formed by 
reading the other great folk-epics (pp. 23, 60, 246, 
329). 

It is noticeable that the best versions of the runes 
were not obtained in Finland proper. 

" The Finns of Russia and of the Russian Church are 
still quite illiterate and in a state of primitive simplicity ; 
among them the tradition of the songs has remained 
singularly fresh. For the genuine traditional rune is in 
its essence the poetry of the illiterate, the poetry of 
nature " (p. 19). " The northern region in which the 
ancient Russian songs most abound and are most un- 
changed is the same in which the poetical tradition of 
the Finns also is best preserved, — the government of 
Archangel, and Olonetz from Lake Onega to Lake La- 
doga" (p. 311). 



AND THE EPIC QUESTION 179 

The case here is parallel to that of our English 
ballads. When the publication of Percy's " Ke- 
liques of Ancient English Poetry," in 1765, aroused 
a general interest in our folk-songs, it was only in 
the remoter parts of Scotland that these were still 
current in the mouths of the people. No one singer 
furnished so many choice ballads as Mrs. Brown 
of Falkland, who is fairly entitled to be the pa- 
tron-saint of ballad-lovers. Versions of thirty-one 
ballads were obtained from her. In many cases 
her version is easily the best one extant ; while 
the ballad " Allison Gross " and the pure gold of 
" Willie's Lady " have been preserved to us by her 
alone. It throws a flood of light upon the nature 
of folk-poetry to learn just how this woman ob- 
tained her songs. She was born in 1747, and learned 
her ballads before she was twelve. Her father, Pro- 
fessor Thomas Gordon of Aberdeen, wrote about 
her in these words : — 

" An aunt of my children (Mrs. Farquharson, now 
[1799?] dead), who was married to the proprietor of 
a small estate near the sources of the Dee, in Braemar, 
a good old woman, who spent the best part of her life 
among flocks and herds, resided in her latter days in 
Aberdeen. She was possessed of a most tenacious mem- 
ory, which retained all the songs she had heard from 
the nurses and country-women in that sequestered part 
of the country. Being maternally fond of my children, 
when young, she had them much about her, and delighted 
them with her songs and tales of chivalry. My young- 
est daughter, Mrs. Brown, at Falkland, is blessed with 



180 THE FINNISH KALEVALA 

a memory as good as her aunt's, and has almost the whole 
of her songs by heart." 1 

If the reader will look up on a good map the 
sources of the Dee in Braemar in Western Aber- 
deenshire, where Mrs. Brown's aunt learned her 
ballads, he will note that the district is one of the 
wildest in Scotland. The region contains a large 
number of the loftiest mountains in that country. 
Only a fortunate chance preserved to us the choice 
folk-songs which still lingered in that remote corner 
of Great Britain during the second quarter of the 
eighteenth century. 

Mr. Lang's main interest in the " Kalevala " and 
in the work of Comparetti is because of the light 
thrown by them upon the broader Homeric ques- 
tion, better called the epic question, — the prob- 
lem concerning the mode of origin of the world's 
great national epics. Indeed, this larger question 
was probably the especial stimulus which led Com- 
paretti himself to study the epic of the Finns. 

The reason why this problem is an endless one 
is not far to seek. Since Wolf in 1795 advocated 
the view that the Iliad was put together from sepa- 
rate songs, two tendencies have been clearly de- 
veloped in the theorizings concerning the origin of 
folk-epics. One tendency accents the element of 
folk-poetry, popular poetry, as the fundamental 
fact. Since most popular poetry is narrative, and 
this exists almost entirely in the form of separate 

1 Nichols's Illustrations of the Literary History of the XVIIIth 
Century, vol. vii. p. 178. 



AND THE EPIC QUESTION 181 

ballads, this view makes much of the individual 
folk-songs, and makes little of the grave difficulties 
which confront one who tries to explain how any 
particular epic was put together or otherwise de- 
veloped from these elements. These difficulties are 
somewhat mitigated by the theory that the Iliad, 
for example, existed at one time as a simpler 
though complete poem, a primary Iliad, to which 
successive additions have been made. We must 
remember, also, that in folk-poetry itself we find 
ballads combined into larger compositions. The 
English " Gest of Robin Hood " is admitted to be 
a composite of different ballads. Compound ballads 
are well known to the Finns. Comparetti gives one 
which corresponds to five different runes of the 
"Kalevala" and parts of three others (pp. 158 ff.). 
It is somewhat misleading, therefore, to suggest that 
no " song existing independently ever figures in a 
large poem " (p. viii). 

The second tendency in explaining the origin of 
popular epics is to accent the element of plan and 
the organic unity of the great mass of material, 
and either to overlook the precedent folk-songs or 
at least to minimize their importance. The origin t 
of a popular epic, however, cannot possibly be ex- 
plained without the presence in some measure of 
both factors, — the creative but unconscious folk- 
spirit, and the conscious master poet. Inasmuch as 
folk-poetry cannot flourish except in a society un- 
cultured and free from self -consciousness, incapable 
of observing and reporting the phenomena of its 



182 THE FINNISH KALEVALA 

own mental life, both the general problem and that 
with reference to each particular epic become im- 
possible of exact solution. The importance of the 
" Kalevala " in this line of inquiry is very great, 
since it is " the only example we have of a national 
poem actually resulting from minor songs ; these 
songs being not discoverable in it according to some 
preconceived idea by means of inductive analysis, 
but known as really existing independently of the 
large composition" (p. ix). Lonnrot thought him- 
self to be a Finnish Homer, composing the epic of his 
race from their stores of song. Comparetti points out 
that Lonnrot, though a folk-poet at heart, was also 
a scholar, filled with modern theorizings concern- 
ing the making of popular epics (p. 340) ; and 
" the processes of such a man are no argument for 
early Greece " (Lang, p. xvi). Moreover, although 
Lonnrot alters and transposes with great freedom, 
and sometimes inserts original passages, the " Kale- 
vala " comes far short of possessing a unity like that 
of the Iliad or the Odyssey. Though charming in 
all its parts, the Finnish epic, when considered as 
a whole, remains in many respects a piece of patch- 
^work. 

There can be no doubt, I think, that Mr. Lang 
underestimates the importance of the folk element 
in the Homeric poems. He says, using in part the 
language of Comparetti : — 

u In my opinion the maker of the Iliad did just what 
was done by the maker of ' The Lay of the Last Min- 
strel.' Out of his knowledge of facts or fancies, as ex-* 



AND THE EPIC QUESTION 183 

isting in lays and traditions, he fashioned a long poem 
with beginning, middle, and end, with ' organic unity, 
harmony, proportion of parts coordinated among them- 
selves, and converging towards a final catastrophe ' " 
(p. xxi). 

But the two cases are far from parallel. The con- 
ception of a body of songs concerning the Trojan 
War, which give an accurate version of the events, 
is distinctly assumed in the Odyssey itself (Bk. I. 
U. 350 ff., VIII. 74 ff., 489 ff., 500 ff.). Without 
insisting that this conception is correct for the life- 
time of an actual Odysseus, it seems clear that the 
nature of the popular literature in existence at the 
time when the Odyssey was composed made this 
conception appear not only natural but unques- 
tionable. 

Comparetti declares : " A long poem, created by 
the people, does not exist, cannot exist ; epic popular 
songs, such as could be put together into a true 
poem, have never been seen and are not likely to 
be seen among any people " (p. 352). This seems 
extreme in view of what a Russian scholar named 
Radloff has told us about the popular poetry of 
a Turkish tribe, the Kara-Kirghis. 1 These people 
dwell among the mountains of Central Asia, in the 
general neighborhood of Lake Issyk-kul and the city 

1 Proben der V ollcslitteratur der nordlichen turlcischen Stamme. 
Gesammelt und iibersetzt von Dr. W. Radloff. V. Teil, Dialect 
der Kara-Kirgisen. The book is in Russian. The writer is very 
greatly indebted to Professor George C. Howland of the Uni- 
versity of Chicago for making him a written translation of the 
entire Introduction. 



184 THE FINNISH KALEVALA 

of Kashgar, near the westernmost border of the 
Chinese Empire. The poetry of this tribe, according 
to Eadloff, is still "in a certain original period 
which is best called the genuinely epic period, that 
same period in which the Greeks were found when 
their epic songs of the Trojan war were not yet 
written, but lived in the form of genuine folk-poetry 
in the mouths of the people." The national feeling 
of the Kara-Kirghis " has united separate epic songs 
into one undivided whole. . . . The different tradi- 
tions and stories, historical recollections, tales, and 
ballads, as though in obedience to some force of 
attraction, combine about an epic centre, and in all 
their dismemberment appear parts of a comprehen- 
sive general picture." " Only a people which has 
not reached individual culture," says Eadloff, " can 
create bards from its midst, and develop a period of 
contemporaneous epic. With the spread of culture " 
come " rhapsodists who do not compose themselves, 
but sing songs borrowed from others." Eadloff cites 
the following passage from Steinthal : "Up to 1832 
no one knew of a whole Finnish epic. . . . No one 
had knowledge of the unity, and yet ... it was 
existent in the songs themselves." 1 Eadloff com- 
ments on this as follows : " From this I venture 
only to conclude that among the Finns in the year 
1832 the period of contemporaneous epic (as it now 
exists among the Kara-Kirghis) was already past. 
In the epic period the consciousness of the unity of 
the epic is still living in each portion of the whole." 

1 "Das Epos," Zeitschrift fur Volker -psychologie, V. 



AND THE EPIC QUESTION 185 

It must be admitted that so far as Eadloff enters 
into details concerning the poetry of the Kara- 
Kirghis, the epic unity which binds together the 
various songs of the tribe appears to be somewhat 
loose and vague ; but it seems clear that a real 
unity is felt, and that Comparetti has gone too far 
in the assertion cited above. The following compre- 
hensive statement of Comparetti is entirely just; 
but I take the liberty to emphasize two adjectives : 
" In proportion as the epic songs unite to form a 
wide, well-defined, and stable organism, strictly 
popular and collective work is lost sight of, while 
the work of the individual is accentuated and 
brought to light " (p. 339). 

It is a striking fact that the most important 
poems in English which have some right to be re- 
garded as epics of art approximate closely to the 
folk-epic in some essential respects. " Sigurd the 
Volsung," by William Morris, is a fascinating re- 
telling in a continuous poem of the various Eddie 
poems concerning Sigurd and of the prose Volsunga 
Saga. The poet makes no attempt to remove all 
the difficulties and inconsistencies which he found 
in his sources. The story which Tennyson chose for 
his theme in " The Idylls of the King " took its rise 
in remote Celtic tradition, and, becoming later a 
literary tradition, had attracted other stories to itself 
and had been fashioned and refashioned centuries 
before Tennyson. The general story of Milton's 
" Paradise Lost " was first told in a form destined 
to dominate subsequent writers by Bishop Avitus 



186 THE FINNISH KALEVALA 

of Vienne, about 500 A. D., in his Latin epic poem, 
" De Spiritalis Historic Gestis." Professor Marsh 
of Harvard University tells us that this poem was 
itself the outcome of a precedent poetic tradition, 
and that it was especially poetical and powerful 
" largely because Avitus made use freely and skill- 
fully of what his predecessors had done." 1 Yet 
Avitus wrote nearly twelve hundred years before 
Milton. Some of the more important English ver- 
sions of this story between Avitus and Milton are 
to be found in the poems formerly attributed to Caed- 
mon, in the " Cursor Mundi," and in the cycles of 
mystery plays. The last editor of " Paradise Lost," 
Mr. Moody, in his admirable " Cambridge Milton," 
discusses only the different Renaissance poems 
which treat of the Fall of Man, and which may have 
directly influenced Milton. If we bear in mind the 
entire tradition, the following words of Mr. Moody 
become so much more expressive : in a" restricted 
but still significant sense, ' Paradise Lost ' is a 
4 natural epic,' with a law of growth like that of 
Beowulf or the Iliad." 

We can say in general that the two concep- 
tions — that of an epic with a story wholly in- 
vented by its author, so far as invention is possible, 
and that of one made up of folk-songs unaltered but 
arranged in the most effective order — are the polar 
opposites of each other. It is probably impossible 
that a large, impressive, and unified poem, one 
which we could properly term an epic, a master- 
1 Article on Avitus, Johnson'' s Universal Cyclopaedia. 



AND THE EPIC QUESTION 187 

piece of grand narrative, could approximate very 
closely to either of these poles. Tasso, in his " Jeru- 
salem Delivered," and Camoens, in the " Lusiads," 
have made acknowledged epic masterpieces upon 
historical themes ; these poems come nearest to 
one of these extremes. But among all the epics 
accessible to the general reader, the " Kalevala " 
comes nearest to the other extreme, that of a simple 
arrangement of folk-songs. 

The " Kalevala " has an especial interest for the 
people of the United States. Among the longer 
poems that have been produced in America, Long- 
fellow's " Hiawatha " is perhaps the most successful. 
In this poem the measure and the style of the 
"Kalevala" have been used with admirable taste and 
skill to embody the rich mythology of the North 
American Indians. 

Political happenings have also called our atten- 
tion .to Finland. After Russia wrested this district 
from Sweden in 1809, the inhabitants enjoyed more 
freedom and a better government than any other 
portion of the empire. But now their cherished 
rights have been taken away, and the Finns have 
appealed in vain to the civilized world for sympathy 
and moral support. Would that the recent acts 
of our own republic had not taken away from us 
the right and the power to speak out effectively 
in behalf of freedom and self-government for the 
distressed Finns ! 



HAMLET'S 
"WOO'T DRINK UP EISEL?" 






HAMLET'S 
« WOO 'T DKINK UP EISEL ? " 1 

Fukness, in his great Variorum edition of 
"Hamlet," begins as follows five pages of original 
and selected comments upon this expression : — 

" With the exception of ' the dram of eale,' no word 
or phrase in this tragedy has occasioned more discussion 
than this Esill [the Second Quarto] or Esile [the First 
Folio]. . . . Theobald saw the difficulty so clearly that 
subsequent criticism has chiefly ranged itself on one or 
other of the two interpretations suggested by him, viz. 
that the word either represents the name of a river, or 
is an old word, meaning vinegar." 2 

The phrase under discussion comes at the begin- 
ning of a well-known speech of Hamlet to Laertes 
at the grave of Ophelia : — 

" 'Swounds, show me what thou 'It do : 
Woo 't weep ? woo 't fight ? woo 't fast ? woo 't tear thyself ? 
Woo 't drink up eisel ? eat a crocodile ? 
I '11 do 't." 

V. i. 297-300. 

It is noticeable that the First Quarto text of the 
play does not contain the word that troubles us. 

1 Revised from the Modern Language Notes, December, 1894. 

2 I. p. 405. 



192 " WOO 'T DRINK UP EISEL ? " 

The question that there appears is, " Wilt drinke 
up vessels ? " 

Without going into the controversy over the 
exact force of up in " Woo 't. drink up eisel ? " it 
is safe to accept the conclusion of Furness, " that 
in the present passage, ' drink up esill ' means no 
more than to 4 quaff esill.' " 

I believe that the denotation " vinegar " for the 
word Esill) Esile, has seemed unsatisfactory simply 
because the connotation of the phrase as a whole 
has not been understood ; and that an allusion is 
intended to the draught of vinegar and gall offered 
to Christ. This draught was looked upon during 
the Middle Ages as a bitter, loathsome compound, 
and the offer of it to Christ as a crowning insult 
and a crowning torture. According to this view, 
the phrase takes all its fullness of meaning from 
this distinct reference to the dying agonies of the 
Crucified One. 

Three different offers of " vinegar " to Christ at 
the time of the crucifixion seem to be recorded in 
the Gospels, as indicated below. An " interpreta- 
tion " of each offer is added, taken from the com- 
ments upon the passages concerned that are given 
in the volumes of the Cambridge Bible for Schools 
and Colleges. It may be presumed that the special 
students of the New Testament at the present day 
accept these interpretations substantially as here 
given. 



WOO 'T DRINK UP EISEL f 



193 



i. 

The offer of vinegar 
and gall (or myrrh) be- 
fore the crucifixion. 



Christ tastes, but does 
not drink. 



Matt, xxvii. 33-34. 
Mark xv. 23. 



Interpretation : A stu- 
pefying draught offered 
in mercy. 



II. 

The mocking offer of 
vinegar during the early 
part of the time that 
Christ is hanging upon 
the cross. 

Christ does not drink. 



Luke xxiii. « 



Interpretation : "By 
the word ' mocked ' 
seems to be meant that 
they lifted up to His 
lips the vessels contain- 
ing their ordinary drink 
— sour wine — and then 
snatched them away." 



III. 

The offer of a sponge 
filled with vinegar just 
before Christ's death. 



Christ drinks. 



Matt, xxvii. 48. 

Mark xv. 36. 
John xix. 28-30. 



Interpretation: "Prob- 
ably in compassion ra- 
ther than mockery ; or 
perhaps in compassion 
under cover of mock- 
ery." (A. Plummer, 
St. John.) 



We can hardly expect to find better evidence as 
to the way in which the Englishmen of the Middle 
Ages conceived of the crucifixion than that given 
us by the dramas that treat of this in the great cy- 
cles of English mystery plays. Any interpretation 
in which the four extant cycles agree was almost 
certainly the universal interpretation at the time 
that " Hamlet " was written ; for the York Plays 
continued to be performed until Shakespeare was 
fifteen years old, while the Chester Plays were 
acted for the last time in 1600. 

In the mystery plays there is only a single offer 
of vinegar. The conception common to all four 
cycles seems to be the following : — 

1. The drink used is vinegar mingled with gall, 
or myrrh. 



194 " WOO 'T DRINK UP EISEL f " 

2. The drink is the most unpalatable mixture 
that malice can devise. It is offered to Christ when 
He is tortured with thirst. In the so-called Coventry 
play of the Crucifixion, we learn that the very sight 
of the draught causes His face to become distorted 
with loathing. 

3. This offer of vinegar and gall is the last in- 
sult and torture to which Christ is subjected. He 
refuses the draught, apparently not even tasting it, 
and dies immediately afterward. 

4. The word used is aysell, asell, ascill, eyjil. 
No other word is used for vinegar in connection 
with this incident, so far as I have noted. 

Wycliffe, however, uses aycel in Matt, xxvii. 
48 only, out of the six passages noted above, and 
there he adds the explanatory gloss or vynegre ; in 
the other places he uses vynegre, wyn, and iviyn. 

This conception of the draught of vinegar and 
gall as a malicious means of torture seems to be so 
old that only the agreement of reputable scholars 
makes one accept the modern interpretation. In 
the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, just after the 
crucifixion, when the inhabitants of the world of the 
dead are expecting Christ to come among them, 
" Satan, prince of Tartarus," says boastingly to 
Hades : — 

" Why hast thou doubted, and feared to receive this 
Jesus, thy adversary and mine ? For I have tempted 
him, and I have roused up my ancient people the Jews 
with hatred and anger against him ; I have sharpened 
a lance to strike him ; I have mixed gall and vinegar to 



"WOO'T DRINK UP EISEL?" 195 

give him to drink ; and I have prepared wood to crucify 
him, and nails to pierce him, and his death is near at 
hand, that I may bring him to thee, subject to thee 

and me." * 

Let us now note in each of the four cycles of 
mystery plays some of the most striking lines that 
illustrate the above statements. 

The York Plays : 2 xxxvi., " Mortificacio Cristi." 

"Jesus 

A ! me thristis sare. [I thirst 
Garcio. A drinke shalle I dresse the in dede, 
A draughte that is full dayntely dight, 

Nowe swete sir, youre will yf it ware, 
A draughte here of drinke haue I dreste, 
To spede for no spence that ^e spare, 

[That for no expense ye spare to thrive 
But baldely ye bib it for the beste 

For- why ; 
Aysell and galle 
Is menged with aUe, [mingled 
Drynke it }e schalle, 
Your lippis, I halde thame full drye. 
Jesus. Thi drinke it schalle do me no deere, [harm 
Wete thou wele ther-of will I none." [know thou 

After speaking eleven lines more in this same 
speech, Jesus dies. 

The Towneley Plays : 3 « Crucifixio." 

" Jesus 

Now thryst I, wonder sore. 
primus tortor. Noght bot hold thi peasse ! 

1 The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. viii., Buffalo, 1885. " The 
Gospel of Nicodemus," Part II., " Christ's Descent into Hell," 
chap. 4. 

2 Clarendon Press, 1885. 

3 Early English Text Society, 1897. 



196 " WOO 9 T DRINK UP EISEL ? " 

Thou shall have drynke within a resse, [with a rush 

My self shalbe thy knaue ; 
have here the draght that I the hete, [promise 
And I shall warand it is not swete, 

On all the good I haue." 

The drawing lots for the coat comes next. Christ 
speaks six lines more in two speeches before dying. 

In a later play in the same cycle, " Resurreccio 
domini," Christ says : — 

" And yit more understand thou shall ; 
In stede of drynk they gaf me gall, 
Asell thay menged it withall, 

The lues fell ; 
The payn I haue, tholyd I to saue [suffered 

Mans saull from hell." 

The Chester Plays : * " The Crucifixion." 

" Jesus, My thurste is sore, my thurste is sore ! 
Tercius Judeus. Yea, thou shalte have drinke therfore, 
That thou shall liste drinke no more [desire 
Of all this seven yeaire." 

Jesus then utters a dying speech of five lines. 

In play xviii., " The Harrowing of Hell," Satan 
says of Christ : — 

" Againste this shrewe that sittes here 
I tempted the folke in fowle manere, 
Ascill and gall to his dynere [dinner 
I made them for to dighte." 

The Coventry Mysteries 2 (so-called) : xxxii., 
" The Condemnation and Crucifixion of Christ." 

11 Jhesus. So grett a thrust dede nevyr man take 
As I have, man, now for thi sake ; 
For thrust asundyr my lyppys gyn crake, — [crack 
For drynes thei do cleve. 

1 The Shakespeare Society, 1843. 

2 Ludus Coventrice, etc., The Shakespeare Society, 1841. 



; 



" WOO'T DRINK UP EISEL?" , 197 

Tertius Judceus. }our thrust, sere hoberd, for to slake, 

EyBil and galle here I the take, 

What ! me thynkyth a mowe 3e make : — [grimace 

Is not this good drynk ? 
To crye for drynke Be had gret hast, 
And now it semyth it is but wast, — 
Is not this drynk of good tast ? 

Now telle me how 3e thynk ! n 

Jesus then utters his dying words. 

That the letter } in the word " eyjil " can have 
the pronunciation of z is plain from the form 
" Bel^abub " = Beelzebub in the twenty-second play 
of this same cycle. 

No city of England was more famous for its 
Scripture plays than Coventry, situated only eight- 
een miles from Stratford-on-Avon. Two of the 
craft-plays of Coventry have come down to us, al- 
though the so-called Coventry cycle is not thought 
to be rightly named. That the craft-plays of Coven- 
try agreed in the main with those in the cycles 
that we possess is not only probable a priori ; it 
is made quite certain by the fact that one scene, 
the Disputation of Christ with the Doctors in the 
Temple, is largely the same in the York Plays, 
the Woodkirk (Towneley) Plays, the Chester Plays, 
and in the play of the Weavers of Coventry, 1 

The following passages from Mr. Halliwell-Phil- 
lipps, in which he speaks of the English mystery 
plays, are of interest : — 

" That Shakespeare, in his early youth, witnessed re- 
presentations of some of these mysteries, cannot admit 

1 See Davidson, Modern Language Notes, vii. p. 92 ; French, 
Ibid., xix. 31-2. 



198 • " WOO'T DRINK UP EISEL V 

of a reasonable doubt. . . . The performances which 
then took place nearly every year at Coventry attracted 
hosts of spectators from ail parts of the country, while, 
at occasional intervals, the mystery players of that city 
made theatrical progresses to various other places. It 
is not known whether they favored Stratford-on-Avon 
with a professional visit, but it is not at all improbable 
that they did, for they must have passed through the 
town in their way to Bristol, where it is recorded that 
they gave a performance in the year 1570." 

"It is impossible to say to what extent even the 
Scriptural allusions in the works of Shakespeare himself 
may not be attributed to recollections of such perform- 
ances, for in one instance at least [Hamlet's expression, 
1 It out-herods Herod.' III. ii. 15-6] the reference by 
the great dramatist is to the history as represented in 
those plays, not to that recorded in the New Testa- 
ment." l 

Among the quotations cited by Furness in his 
comments upon this passage in the " Variorum 
Hamlet," two refer to Christ, and represent Him 
as tasting the " eisel and gall," in accordance with 
the account of Matthew. These passages look upon 
this tasting as one of the tortures of the crucifix- 
ion. From Sir Thomas More's Poems is quoted: 
" remember therewithal How Christ for thee tasted 
eisel and gall." In the eighth prayer in the " Salis- 
bury Primer," 1555, we have the words : " O blessed 
Jesu ! . . . I beseech thee for the bitterness of the 
aysell and gall that thou tasted." 

1 Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, 10th ed., vol. i. pp. 
46-7, 50. 



"WOO'T DRINK UP EISEL?" 199 

Professor J. M. Hart has called attention 1 to 
the following passage from the " Kalender of 
Shepeardes " : 2 " and than was he nayled on the 
crosse and late fall in the mortis and than gaue hym 
eysell and gall to drynke." The " Kalender " was 
a popular book in the sixteenth century, appearing 
in many editions. 

In "Nares' Glossary" (edition of Halliwelland 
Wright) the following is quoted from Skelton : — 

" He paid a bitter pencion 
For man's redemption, 
He dranke eisel and gall 
To redeme us withal. " 

The different forms of the word eisel occur in a 
moderately large number of passages, and in vari- 
ous writers. The latest example of its use that is 
given in the " New English Dictionary " bears the 
date 1634. 

The older conception of the draught of vinegar 
and gall as a malicious device for torturing the 
Lord, survives in a stanza of the well-known hymn 
" Coronation." It is clear that the lines in question 
derived their force from the wrong interpretation 
of this incident : — 

" Sinners whose love can ne ? er forget 
The wormwood and the gall ; 
Go, spread your trophies at his feet, 
And crown him Lord of all." 

Apparently the phrase " to drink eisel " came to 

1 Modern Language Notes, vol. xi. (1896), p. 29. 

2 Sommer's reprint of the London edition of 1506, vol. ill. 
p. 156/6. 



200 " WOO 9 T DRINK UP EISEL ? » 

have a proverbial meaning, and to contain an allu- 
sion to the mixture of eisel and gall that was of- 
fered to Christ. The different offers of vinegar 
were confused ; hence, while Christ seems to have 
been thought of in the mystery plays as refusing 
the draught, other writers speak of Him as tasting, 
and others still as drinking. All certainly con- 
ceived of the eisel and gall as the bitterest mixture 
possible. 

One of the most intensely personal of Shake- 
speare's Sonnets, No. cxi., contains the word eisel : 

" O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, 
The guilty goddess of ray harmful deeds, 
That did not better for ray life provide 
Than public means which public manners breeds. 
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, 
And almost thence my nature is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand : 
Pity me then and wish I were renewed ; 
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink 
Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection ; 
No bitterness that I will bitter think, 
Nor double penance, to correct correction. 
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye 
Even that your pity is enough to cure me." 

The word eisel in the above lines evidently 
refers to the use of vinegar as a remedy in cases 
of infection ; but this sonnet furnishes no reason 
for rejecting the explanation that is here offered 
for the passage in " Hamlet." 

Hamlet's phrase, then, " Woo 't drink up eisel ? " 
seems to mean something like this : " Would you 
rival the agonies of the Crucified One ? " Those 
who have interpreted Esile as a river because 



" WOO'T DRINK UP EISEL?" 201 

the context demands hyperbole, will note that in 
the English mystery plays Christ does not even 
taste the vinegar and gall. They are at liberty, 
therefore, to find in this expression the hyperboli- 
cal meaning, " Would you go beyond the agonies of 
the dying Saviour ? " 

It seems highly probable that the expression 
" to drink eisel " passed into common use through 
the influence of the mystery plays, and that this 
much-discussed phrase in " Hamlet " marks a hith- 
erto unnoticed point of connection between Shake- 
speare and the primitive English drama. 



SHAKESPEARE AND "THE TAMING 
OF THE SHREW" 



SHAKESPEARE AND « THE TAMING 
OF THE SHREW" 1 

One is naturally prejudiced against the sugges- 
tion that the first edition of Shakespeare's plays, 
brought out by his friends Heminge and Condell as 
the noblest possible memorial of their dead associate, 
contains work that is not his. But this view was 
advocated near the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury by two men whose opinion on such a question 
must be treated with great respect — Alfred Ten- 
nyson and Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

Tennyson used to point out to his companions 
at Cambridge what he considered to be the gen- 
uine parts of Shakespeare's " Henry VIII." His 
close friend James Spedding, in a careful article, 
assigned certain portions of this play to Shake- 
speare, and the remainder to John Fletcher. 2 It 
is probable that Tennyson was the "man of first- 
rate judgment," of whom Spedding speaks, who 
casually remarked " that many passages in ' Henry 
VIII.' were very much in the manner of Fletcher." 

1 This paper is in the main a reprint of a portion of the article 
entitled " Shakespeare's Part in ' The Taming of the Shrew,' n 
-which appeared in the Publications of the Modern Language Asso- 
ciation, vol. v. (1890), pp. 201-278. 

2 The Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1850. Reprinted in The 
Transactions of the New Shakspere Society for 1874. 



206 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

The following may be taken as the laureate's final 
opinion : — - 

" I have no doubt that much of ' Henry VIII.' is not 
Shakespeare. It is largely written by Fletcher, with 
passages unmistakably by Shakespeare, notably the two 
first scenes in the first Act, which are sane and compact 
in thought, expression, and simile." l 

In his " Representative Men," published in 1850, 
Emerson, knowing nothing of Tennyson's opihion, 
speaks thus of the two styles in this play : — 

" In ' Henry VIII.' I think I see plainly the cropping 
out of the original rock on which his [Shakespeare's] 
own finer stratum was laid. The first play was written 
by a superior, thoughtful man, with a vicious ear. I can 
mark his lines, and know well their cadence. See Wol- 
sey's soliloquy, and the following scene with Cromwell, 
where instead of the metre of Shakespeare, whose se- 
cret is that the thought constructs the tune, so that read- 
ing for the sense will best bring out the rhythm, — here 
the lines are constructed on a given tune, and the verse 
has even a trace of pulpit eloquence. But the play con- 
tains through all its length unmistakable traits of Shake- 
speare's hand, and some passages, as the account of the 
coronation, are like autographs." 

The separation made by Spedding between the 
genuine and the non-Shakespearean parts of 
" Henry VIII." has come to be very generally ac- 
cepted ; also his identification of Fletcher as the 
writer whose work is here associated with that of 
Shakespeare. 

1 Alfred Lord Tennyson, A Memoir y vol. ii. p. 291. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 207 

This striking instance of reputable suspicion con- 
cerning a play in the Shakespearean canon has 
been followed by similar questioning about other 
dramas, and in a few cases with somewhat similar 
results. Other plays which are now believed by 
most scholars to be only in part by Shakespeare 
are " Timon of Athens" and "The Taming of the 
Shrew," this last the subject of the present paper. 
It has been noted in a previous essay 2 that the 
unfitting Hecate portions of u Macbeth " are con- 
sidered to be interpolations. 

For different reasons it has been held by many 
students that the three parts of " Henry VI." 
and " Titus Andronicus " are not entirely the work 
of the great dramatist. The questions involved are 
numerous and difficult, and cannot be even glanced 
at here. The views of scholars vary widely, and 
the whole subject in each case remains open. 

Strictly speaking, the burden of proof is entirely 
upon those who assert that Shakespeare had any 
hand whatever in the play u Pericles." It is not 
in the First Folio edition of his dramatic works. It 
is one of seven plays added in the Third Folio, 
and in the composition of the other six of these 
it is not now claimed that Shakespeare had any 
part. However, certain of the nobler portions of 
" Pericles " are very generally accepted as his, on 
the ground that the language and style are pe- 
culiarly Shakespearean. No one would claim that 
he wrote the entire work. 

1 See pp. 96, 103. 



208 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

Let us now turn to the play that is to receive 
our especial attention. There is a presumption 
against the view that " The Taming of the Shrew " 
is not entirely the work of the poet whose name 
it bears. From the annual statistics given in the 
" Jahrbiicher" of the German Shakespeare Society 
we learn that, during the four years 1885-8, " The 
Taming of the Shrew " was played 297 times in 
the usual version, and 153 times in the Holbein 
adaptation, " Liebe kann Alles," a total of 450 
times. No other play of Shakespeare was put upon 
the stage so frequently. " Othello " and " Ham- 
let" come next, with 414 and 347 performances 
in the same period. These statistics seem to be 
intended to cover substantially all the European 
theatres in which German is spoken. Can it be 
that Shakespeare was not the sole author of a play 
which still holds the stage in England and America, 
and which is so exceptionally popular in Germany, 
the second fatherland of the great poet ? 

This comedy is the only one, however, that calls 
for supplementary statistics in the " Jahrbiicher." 
Apparently, this play alone among those attributed 
to Shakespeare has been so skillfully rewritten by 
a later author that his revision secures permanent 
approval and acceptance in critical Germany. This 
peculiar condition of things certainly suggests that 
the comedy may be only in part the work of Shake- 
speare. 

" The Taming of the Shrew " (which we will 
call for brevity " The Shrew ") stands in very 
close connection with a play entitled " The Taming 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 209 

of a Shrew " (" A Shrew "). The latter piece was 
first printed in 1594, again in 1596, and a third 
time in 1607. In the words of Hudson, "This 
play and Shakespeare's agree in having substan- 
tially the same plot, order, and incidents, so far as 
regards the Lord, the Tinker, Petruchio, Catharine, 
and the whole taming process. " x 

The underplot of " The Shrew," the story of 
Bianca and her rival lovers, is founded upon " The 
Supposes," " a comedy written in the Italian tongue 
by Ariosto, Englished by George Gascoigne, of 
Gray's Inn, Esquire ; and there presented, 1566." 2 
The following elements, indeed, have passed from 
" The Supposes " into the underplot of both plays, 
"A Shrew " and " The Shrew " : a young gentleman 
disguises himself in order to sue for a lady, while 
his servant takes the master's role. A false father 
gives assurance of a marriage portion ; then the 
real father appears. In the main, however, the 
underplot of " A Shrew " consists of a saccharine 
wooing of two willing ladies by two lofty lovers. 

The correspondence between those parts of " The 
Shrew " where Katharine and Petruchio are upon 
the stage together and similar passages in U A 
Shrew " is very remarkable. The occurrences are 
the same in both plays. This is also true of the 
connected incidents in Petruchio's house. We find 
also, in these parts, an agreement in the language, 

1 Harvard Shakespeare, vol. ii. p. 131. The most convenient 
edition of A Shrew is vol. ii. of the Bankside Shakespeare. This 
prints A Shrew and The Shrew upon opposite pages. 

2 In vol. i. of Gascoigne' 's Complete Works, 2 vols., Roxburghe 
Library, 1869-70. 



210 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 



which, though much less complete than the agree- 
ment in the action, is far more remarkable, extend- 
ing at times to minute and unimportant details of 
expression. With the exception of Parts II. and 
III. of " Henry VI.," such a close correspondence 
as we have here between the language of a play- 
attributed to Shakespeare and that of another 
existing piece cannot be found. 

In order to make plain the character of these 
verbal agreements, those which concern Scene iii. 
of Act IV. of " The Shrew " and the corresponding 
portion of the companion play are here presented 
in parallel columns. 



IV. iii. "THE SHREW" 

" I prithee go and get me some 
repast." 

" What say you to a piece of 
beef and mustard ? " 

" Ay, but the mustard is too 
hot a little." 

" I pray you, let it stand." 

" When you are gentle, you 
shall have one too, And not till 
then." 

" Belike you mean to make a 
puppet of me. Pet Why, true ; 
he means to make a puppet of 
thee." 

" Thou hast faced many things. 
Tax. I have. Gru. Face not me : 
thou hast braved many men; 
brave not me ; I will neither be 
faced nor braved. I say unto 
thee, I bid thy master cut out 
the gown ; but I did not bid him 
cut it to pieces : ergo, thou liest. 



"A SHREW" 

" I prithee help me to some 
meat." 

" What say you to a piece of 
beef and mustard now ? " 

" I doubt the mustard is too 
choleric for you." 

" I pray you, sir, let it stand." 

" Ay, when you 're meek and 
gentle, but not before." 

" Belike you mean to make a 
fool of me. Feran. Why, true ; 
he means to make a fool of 
thee." 

"Dost thou hear, Tailor? 
Thou hast braved many men: 
brave not me. Thou 'st faced 
many men. Tai. Well, sir. San. 
Face not me. I '11 neither be 
faced nor braved at thy hands, I 
can tell thee." 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 211 



Tai. Why, here is the note of the 
fashion to testify. Pet. Read it. 
Gru. The note lies in 's throat, 
if he say I said so. Tai. [Reads] 
' Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown.' 
Gru. Master, if ever I said loose- 
bodied gown, sew me in the 
skirts of it, and beat me to death 
with a bottom of brown thread : 
I said a gown. Pet. Proceed. 
Tai. [Reads] 'With a small 
compassed cape : \ Gru. I con- 
fess the cape. Tai. [Reads] 
1 With a trunk sleeve : ' Gru. 
I confess two sleeves.'' 



" Go take it up unto thy mas- 
ter's use. Gru. Villain, not for 
thy life : take up my mistress' 
gown for thy master's use ! Pet . 
Why, sir, what's your conceit 
in that ? Gru. 0, sir, the conceit 
is deeper than you 3 think for : 
take up my mistress' gown to 
his master's use ! " 



" Well, come, my Kate ; we will 
unto your father's, 

Even in these honest mean ha- 
biliments : 

Our purses shall be proud, our 
garments poor." 

" And 't will be supper-time ere 
you come there." 



" Why, sir, I made it as your 
man gave me direction. You 
may read the note here. Feran. 
Come hither, sirrah. Tailor, read 
the note. Tai. l Item : a fair 
round compassed cape.' San. 
Ay, that 's true. Tai. ' And a 
large trunk sleeve.' San. That 's 
a lie, master. I said two trunk 
sleeves. Feran. Well, sir, go 
forward. Tai. 'Item: a loose- 
bodied gown.' San. Master, if 
ever I said loose-bodied gown, 
sew me in a seam, and beat me 
to death with a bottom of brown 
thread. Tai. I made it as the 
note bade me. San. I say the 
note lies in his throat ; and thou 
too, and thou say'st it." 

" Go, I say, and take it up for 
your master's use. San. 'Zounds, 
villain, not for thy life. Touch 
it not. 'Zounds ! Take up my 
mistress' gown to his master's 
use ! Feran. Well, sir, what 's 
your conceit of it ? San. I have 
a deeper conceit in it than you 
think for. Take up my mis- 
tress' gown to his master's 



" Come, Kate, we now will go 
see thy father's house, 

Even in these honest mean ha- 
biliments : 

Our purses shall be rich, our 
garments plain." 

" It will be nine o'clock ere we 
come there." 



The common opinion has been that Shakespeare 
took the story of the taming of Katharine from 



212 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

" A Shrew," and that with the story he freely ap- 
propriated the language also. This view is unsat- 
isfactory. It is hard to believe that Shakespeare 
borrowed from another writer unimportant prose 
phrases in this wholesale and slavish way. This 
difficult question will be taken up again in the 
paper concerning Shakespeare's " Love's Labour 's 
Won." i 

If we look into the history of opinion concerning 
the authorship of " The Shrew," we find that the 
most divergent views have been held. Pope, early 
in the eighteenth century, made Shakespeare the 
author not only of this play, but also of " A Shrew." 
Dr. Warburton, near the middle of the century, 
considered " The Shrew " to be certainly spurious, 
as far as any connection with Shakespeare is con- 
cerned. 2 

Farmer and Steevens held less pronounced but 
still opposing views. Farmer supposes " The Shrew " 
to be "not originally the work of Shakespeare, 
but restored by him to the stage." Shakespeare's 
contribution to this restored play was the whole 
Induction, " and some occasional improvements, 
especially in the character of Petruchio." Steevens 
says, on the contrary : — 

" I know not to whom I could impute this comedy, 
if Shakespeare was not its author. I think his hand is 
visible in almost every scene, though perhaps not so 

1 See pp. 300 ff . 

2 The views of the earlier critics may he found in the Variorum 
Shakespeare of 1821, edited hy Boswell and Malone. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 213 

evidently as in those which pass between Katharine and 
Petruchio." 

The wide divergence of earlier scholars, however, 
is giving place to a good measure of agreement. 
Of later critics, White, Fleay, and Furnivall have 
studied the question of the authorship of " The 
Shrew " with substantially the same result. White 
says : 1 — 

" In it [^ The Shrew '] three hands at least are trace- 
able : that of the author of the old play, that of Shake- 
speare himself, and that of a co-laborer. The first [hand, 
that of the author of ' A Shrew '] appears in the struc- 
ture of the plot, and in the incidents and the dialogue 
of most of the minor scenes [this phrase is misleading. 
It is the major scenes of ' The Shrew ' which especially 
resemble parts of 'A Shrew ']...; to the last [hand, 
that of the co-laborer,] must be assigned the greater part 
of the love business between Bianca and her two suitors 
[Gremio and Tranio are omitted from consideration] ; 
while to Shakespeare belong the strong, clear character- 
ization, the delicious humor, and the rich verbal color- 
ing of the recast Induction, and all the scenes in which 
Katharine and Petruchio and Grumic are the promi- 
nent figures, together with the general effect produced 
by scattering lines and words and phrases here and 
there, and removing others elsewhere, throughout the 
rest of the play." 

The single authorship of " The Shrew " has been 
doubted, also, on metrical grounds. Konig, a care- 
ful investigator of Shakespeare's versification, ob- 
tains such contradictory results from a comparison 

1 Shakespeare's Works, vol. iv. (1858). 



214 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

of the metrical peculiarities of " The Shrew " with 
those of the other plays, that he is forced to the 
conclusion that it cannot be entirely the work of 
the poet. 1 

Mr. F. G. Fleay and Mr. F. J. Furnivall 2 have 
both sought to divide the Shakespearean from the 
non-Shakespearean parts of the play. Mr. Fleay 
apparently made little use of his elaborate paper 
" On the Authorship of the Taming of the Shrew " 
in determining what parts he should assign to 
Shakespeare. Mr. Furnivall claimed to be guided 
only by his sense of style. With reference to both 
of these attempts to determine the part of Shake- 
speare in this drama, there is something left to be 
desired. 

We need a clear view of the terms on which 
Shakespeare and his presumed partner or partners 
divided their task between them. If there was some 
plan in the assignment of the parts to each, we may 
hope by careful study to find it out. Unless we can 
discover some such plan of procedure, our results 
must necessarily be so largely personal as to lose 
much of their value. Metrical tests and specific 
peculiarities of style may so far corroborate our 
conclusions as to make it very sure that we have 
divided the play into parts behind which there lurks 
a similiar division in the authorship. But we can- 



1 Der Vers in Shaksperes Dramen (Quellen und Forschungen, 
lxi.), p. 137. 

2 Transactions New Shakspere Society , 1874. Fleay's article was 
reprinted in his Shakespeare Manual. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 215 

not feel really satisfied with our results unless we 
can find out the agreement between these writers, 
their method of cooperation. Of course, there may 
have been no clear-cut division of labor ; but this is 
not probable. It is quite likely, however, that one 
of the associated authors would have the final re- 
vision of the whole piece. In this revision, he might 
remove, insert, or rewrite passages in the portion 
contributed by his partner or partners. So far as 
he made such alterations, the task of separating the 
work of the different writers would become more 
and more difficult. It might become impossible to 
do this except in a very general way. 

That " The Shrew " was not written by one man 
at one time, that we have at least two styles here, 
will be evident to a careful reader. Let any one 
compare the opening speeches of Act I. (Scene i. 
1-40) , their strutting rhetoric, their solemn rehearsal 
of that preliminary business of the play which al- 
ways clogs and embarrasses a weak writer, — with 
Petruchio's soliloquy (II. i. 169-82) where he dis- 
closes his plan as to the manner in which he is to 
woo Katharine. The first passage is swelling, vague. 
The servant seems to know already all that the 
master can ever hope to learn ; he unfolds an elab- 
orate system of education with all the tedious, su- 
perficial wisdom of a man who knows many words 
but few things. The advice ends, however, with 
that gem, — 

" In brief, sir, study what you most affect." 

In these lines and the first speech of Baptista which 



216 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

follows, the metrical accent falls very frequently 
upon unemphatic monosyllables ; 1 and the constant 
use of inversion gives an artificial effect. 2 

The first twenty-four lines of the passage de- 
scribed constitute the first speech of the main 
play : — 

" Lucentio. Tranio, since for the great desire I had 
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts, 
I am arrived for fruitful Lonibardy, 
The pleasant garden of great Italy ; 
And by my father's love and leave am arm'd 
With his good will and thy good company, 
My trusty servant, well approved in all, 
Here let us breathe and haply institute 
A course of learning and ingenious studies. 
Pisa renowned for grave citizens 
Gave me my being and my father first, 
A merchant of great traffic through the world, 
Vincentio, come of the Bentivolii. 
Vincentio's son brought up in Florence 
It shall become to serve all hopes conceived, 
To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds : 
And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study, 
Virtue and that part of philosophy 
Will I apply that treats of happiness 
By virtue specially to be achieved. 
Tell me thy mind ; for I have Pisa left 
And am to Padua come, as he that leaves 
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep 
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.' ' 

The Shrew, I. i. 1-24. 

The second passage to which I have referred, 
the soliloquy of Petruchio, is clear, sharp, specific ; 
each noun, verb, adjective, adverb, each compari- 

1 See 11. 1, 10, 38, 50. 

2 See Dr. Abbott, Transactions New Shakspere Society, 1874, 
p. 121. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 217 

son seems, so to speak, to put its finger on some 
feature in Petruchio's plan. Antithesis and climax 
are used in the easy, unforced way that marks the 
master. Note the contrast between these lines and 
those just given : — 

" Petruchio. ... I will attend her here, 
And woo her with some spirit when she comes. 
Say that she rail ; why then I '11 tell her plain 
She sings as sweetly as a nightingale : 
Say that she frown ; I '11 say she looks as clear 
As morning roses newly wash'd with dew : 
Say she be mute and will not speak a word ; 
Then I '11 commend her volubility, 
And say she uttereth piercing eloquence : 
If she do bid me pack, I '11 give her thanks, 
As though she bid me stay by her a week : 
If she deny to wed, I '11 crave the day 
When I shall ask the banns and when be married. 
But here she comes ; and now, Petruchio, speak." 

The Shrew, II. i. 169-82. 

I think that we shall feel certain that these two 
styles belong to different authors. The writer of 
the first passage never by any process of growth 
attained unto the second. 

What is the evidence that Shakespeare took part 
in the production of " The Shrew " ? The appear- 
ance of the play in the first and authoritative edi- 
tion of his works, the Folio of 1623, furnishes a 
strong presumption in favor of his connection with 
the piece. The thoroughly Shakespearean quality 
of such parts as the Induction, and Scenes i. and v. 
of Act IV., gives to this presumption the strongest 
confirmation. 

In searching for some clue as to the exact por- 



218 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

tion of the work which comes from the hand of 
Shakespeare, it is natural to consider what has 
often been recognized as a fortunate suggestion of 
Collier. He said : — 

" I am, however, satisfied that more than one hand 
(perhaps at distant dates) was concerned in it [' The 
Shrew '], and that Shakespeare had little to do with 
any of the scenes in which Katharine and Petruchio 
are not engaged." * 

We see this hint reappearing in White's state- 
ment, already quoted, that " all the scenes in which 
Katharine and Petruchio and Grumio are the 
prominent figures " belong to Shakespeare. Col- 
lier, however, seems not to have followed up his 
suggestion, and not even to have remembered it. 
In his edition of Shakespeare 2 he simply speaks 
of " portions which are admitted not to be in 
Shakespeare's manner." No criterion of any sort 
is given us. Later in the same Introduction he 
gives to Shakespeare a part of the play which 
his own suggestion and the consenting opinion of 
all later investigators who admit the composite 
character of " The Shrew " would take from him. 

Following Collier's suggestion, let us look at 
those passages by themselves in which Katharine 
and Petruchio appear upon the stage together. 
They are the following : II. i. 183-326 ; III. 
ii. 186-241 ; IV. i. 123-81 ; IV. iii. 36-end ; 

1 History of English Dramatic Poetry, vol. iii. p. 78, ed. 1831. 

2 Vol. iii. 1842. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 219 

IV. v. ; V. i. 10-end; V. ii. 1-48, 99-105, and 
121-87. 1 

One of these passages, V. i. 10-end, is strictly 
exceptional. Petruchio and Katharine are present 
during this scene, but they are of no consequence 
in the development of the action. Their part is 
simply, as Petruchio expresses it, to " stand aside 
and see the end of this controversy." At the close 
of the scene they are left upon the stage together 
for a moment. Petruchio demands that Kate kiss 
him in the street. She demurs ; but he threatens 
to go home again, and she obeys. The situation 
here is admirable ; but the few words of Petruchio 
and Katharine come to us largely in weak, un- 
Shakespearean doggerel rhyme. In all the other 
passages given above, Petruchio and Katharine are 
the central figures. This scene is entirely excep- 
tional in this respect. 

The whole ground-plan of this scene, too, is 
taken from " The Supposes," and is not found in 
" A Shrew." This fact establishes a presumption 
against the scene, since the entire story of Petru- 
chio and Katharine is common to " A Shrew " and 
M The Shrew." For every one of the other pas- 
sages mentioned, there exists a scene more or less 
similar in " A Shrew." We shall therefore leave 
out of our consideration this exceptional passage. 

Let us read carefully the other parts of the play 
which are mentioned above, and see if they have 

i The line-numbers are those of the Globe, Temple, and Evers- 
ley editions. 



220 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

Shakespeare's style. Act II. Scene i. 183-326 
seems to be his. Some of the dialogue is coarse, 
but Petruchio's standards of propriety are not the 
better ones of to-day ; moreover, he is taming a 
shrew, and is careful not to be above his business. 
Kate is badly worsted. This lover who gives be- 
fore a good blow, but never gives up, is a new 
thing in her experience. The longer speeches all 
fall to the unabashed Petruchio, and are pure 
Shakespeare. The device of getting Kate to walk, 
by pretending to have heard that she limps ; her 
anger at being caught in this trap ; his bare-faced 
declaration that she has been very loving to him, 
but that they have agreed that " she shall still be 
curst in company " ; — these points are admirable 
comedy. 

The above passage should be considered as be- 
ginning with line 169. This is the first line of 
Petruchio's soliloquy, which Kate interrupts. Here 
he tells us the manner in which he means to woo 
her. He then goes on to act out the plan before 
us. This soliloquy is dramatically a part of the 
wooing scene, and shows the same style. 

The next passage, III. ii. 186-241, is not so 
plainly Shakespeare's, but there is nothing that 
is not entirely worthy of him. Kate's spirited 
speeches are what we expect of her. Petruchio 
begs the bride with such earnest, lover-like plead- 
ing not to be angry, that Gremio misunderstands 
his courtesy, and says, " Ay, marry, sir, now it be- 
gins to work." Petruchio next commands every 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 221 

one present to obey his wife and " go forward " at 
her command ; and then, after all possible respect 
has been shown to the woman of his choice, he de- 
clares his mediaeval doctrine of absolute property 
in his wife, commands Grumio to draw his weapon 
ready for fight, and marches the astonished Katha- 
rine off with him. This certainly seems to come 
from the same writer as the scene we have been 
considering just before — from Shakespeare. 

The whole of IV. i. seems to be by Shakespeare, 
and not merely the lines already indicated, 123— 
81. The scene is laid at Petruchio's house after 
the marriage ; Shakespeare's fellow-author would 
have no occasion to go there. The first part of this 
scene, during which Petruchio and Katharine are 
not upon the stage, is wholly occupied with pre- 
parations for their appearance. The style is Shake- 
spearean, no part of the play more so. Nothing in 
the whole comedy is better than Grumio's pretense 
that he will not complete his interrupted story : 
" Tell thou the tale : but hadst thou not crossed 
me, thou shouldst have heard how her horse fell 
and she under her horse;" etc. (IV. i. 74 ff.). 
Grumio is the one character outside of Petruchio 
and the shrew who has received Shakespeare's es- 
pecial attention. This bustle of preparation at 
Petruchio's country house has a short counterpart 
in " A Shrew." 

Act IV. Scene i. ends with a soliloquy of Pe- 
truchio in which he outlines his policy. This 
part is equally clear, and is present in outline in 



222 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

" A Shrew." The whole scene belongs to Shake- 
speare. 

The first 36 lines of IV. iii., where Katharine 
begs Grumio for meat, have a full counterpart in 
"A Shrew." The whole scene is acted at Petru- 
chio's house, and it is all plainly from the hand of 
Shakespeare. Act IV. Scene v. is also clearly his, 
and is found in substance in the companion play. 

We feel at first like questioning Shakespeare's 
.authorship of V. ii. 1-48. Here the wit becomes 
somewhat weak. This bantering has the good re- 
sult, however, that the following wager comes in 
very naturally, instead of being the utterly cause- 
less thing that it is in "A Shrew." The other parts 
of Act V. Scene ii. that have been mentioned above 
are entirely worthy of Shakespeare, except the few 
lines of weak, doggerel rhyme at the end. 

The parts of V. ii. in which Katharine is out of 
the room plainly belong with the rest of the scene. 
The first time, she is away but a few moments 
before being called back ; the second time, Petru- 
chio sends her to bring the disobedient ladies. She 
goes out in the same way in " A Shrew," and there 
are no breaks in the style at these points. Just 
before Petruchio and Katharine leave the stage for 
the last time, near the close of the play, we find 
the lines in rhymed doggerel already mentioned, 
with one exception, four-accent lines. We have 
had none of these in the passages already accepted 
as Shakespeare's, but they occur frequently in the 
other parts of the play. If we attribute nothing to 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 223 

Shakespeare after this weak doggerel begins, his 
part will close with V. ii. 181, instead of 187. 
Fleay puts the end of Shakespeare's part after line 
175, perhaps objecting to the rhyme which follows. 
Furnivall makes the division after line 180. The 
idea of 176-9 is present in " A Shrew " also. 

The parts of " The Shrew " which we have now 
accepted as plainly Shakespearean are the follow- 
ing:— 

II. i. 169-326 . . 158 lines. IV. iii 198 lines. 

HI. ii. 186-241 . 56 " IV. v 79 •■ 

IV. i 214 " V. ii. 1-181 ... 181 " 

Total, 886 lines. 

Except for the disagreement as to the exact 
point at which the last passage should close, Fleay 
and Furnivall, working independently, have as- 
signed to Shakespeare every one of the parts given 
in this table. 

Is there anything else in "The Shrew" that 
should be assigned to Shakespeare ? After study- 
ing the play with great care, seeking to form con- 
clusions independent of the work of his predeces- 
sors, the writer finds occasion to add but very little 
to the list of parts already attributed to Shake- 
speare. There are only thirty-five lines more in the 
entire play which Fleay and Furnivall are agreed 
in assigning to Shakespeare, except as Furnivall 
altered his first view after receiving Fleay's table. 
These thirty-five lines, III. ii. 151-85, the writer 
cannot accept as Shakespeare's. Let us examine 
them. 



224 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

The first thing we notice in the passage is that 
not one of Shakespeare's three characters, Petru- 
chio, Katharine, and Grumio, is on the stage. The 
principal speaker is Gremio, a character suggested 
entirely by " The Supposes," where his counterpart 
bears the name of Oleander. We find, too, that 
there is no passage corresponding to this in " A 
Shrew." In every part assigned to Shakespeare, so 
far, there has been some counterpart in the com- 
panion play. 

These facts are very striking. Some less im- 
portant points may also be noticed. Shakespeare's 
plays nowhere else furnish an oath with " gogs " ; 
although oaths are often made with " 'od's." This 
very oath, "gogs-wouns " (line 162), has the form 
" 'od's nouns " with Mrs. Quickly (" Merry Wives," 
IV. i. 25). 

The long speech by Gremio (169-85) is printed 
as prose in the Folio of 1623. It seems to be 
rightly given as verse in the Globe Edition. The 
three-accent line in the middle of the speech is 
noticeable ; there is nothing like it in the parts 
already assigned to Shakespeare ; but in the non- 
Shakespearean parts we have similar lines in II. i. 
346 and 399, and a two-accent line in I. i. 91. 

The first place has been given to these consider- 
ations because they are impersonal facts, which 
cannot be manipulated to suit the taste and pur- 
pose of the investigator. Let us next give at- 
tention to the style and dramatic fitness of the 
passage ; these considerations are more subjective, 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 225 

more open to personal bias on the part of the 
critic. 

The vigor and effectiveness of the language in 
these lines have naturally led to the belief that we 
have here the handiwork of the great master. The 
writer is unable to get the genuine Shakespearean 
impression from the passage, but that may be be- 
cause he is prepossessed against it. 

The question may be asked, Have we here 
Shakespeare's Petruchio at all ? Shakespeare's 
Petruchio, in every scene of the play from the 
beginning to the end (if we except Grumio's 
humorous account of Katharine's getting stuck in 
the mire, IV. i. 74-86), has something of the gen- 
tleman in his bearing. Immediately after the wed- 
ding he is willing to entreat, " O Kate, content 
thee; prithee, be not angry" (III. ii. 217). He is 
careful to see to it that the Tailor is at once 
appeased for the hard usage to which he has been 
subjected (IV. iii. 166). In all Petruchio's ill- 
treatment of Katharine after the marriage, he 
keeps up a studied pretense of kindness, and by 
a fine irony his pretense is only a deeper truth. 
Some genuine manliness has been present in him 
at every point. Of the simply farcical we have had 
nothing. But here in this marriage scene (III. ii. 
151-85), we have a barbarian, making light of all 
holy things, treating God and man with contempt ; 
and such barbarism cannot be altogether excused 
by the goodness of the ultimate purpose. I believe 
that this spirited bit is given us by the same writer 



226 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

who describes Petruchio's horse as a traveling col- 
lection of equine ailments (III. ii. 49 ff.) ; that is, 
by Shakespeare's gifted co-laborer. 

It is in favor of the genuineness of this passage 
that it comes immediately before a part which is 
plainly Shakespeare's. It is easy to think of him 
as writing a telling introduction to the few lines 
which fell to him here according to plan. The 
writer cannot regard the part as his, however, for 
the reasons that have been given. 

After seeing Fleay's table, Furnivall was willing 
to assign to Shakespeare III. ii. 1-125, but had 
not before done so. The passage has a full coun- 
terpart in " A Shrew." Katharine is present at 
the beginning of the scene. Petruchio and Grumio 
appear together after line 88. 

One is not impressed very clearly either that 
the opening lines of this scene are Shakespeare's 
or that they are not. There is one little fact that 
deserves attention. The form appoint occurs in 
Shakespeare's dramas thirteen times ; appointed, 
twenty-nine times; but 'point occurs only here 
(III. ii. 15) ; 'pointed, only here (line 1) and in the 
preceding scene (III. i. 19). The preceding scene is 
confessedly non-Shakespearean. Moreover, the non~ 
Shakespearean parts of this play show some peculiar 
abbreviations. Notice 'cerns for concerns (V. i. 
77) and 'leges for alleges (I. ii. 28). Different 
forms of to concern occur in the Concordance forty- 
eight times ; but there is no other abbreviation like 
this. Forms of to allege occur three times ; such a* 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 227 

contraction comes only here. 'Longeth for belongeth 
(IV. ii. 45 and IV. iv. 7) cannot be cited, as 
this verb is often contracted. It is easy to give too 
much weight to arguments of this kind ; but on the 
whole, the writer cannot think that these opening 
lines are Shakespeare's. 

The next striking feature of this scene was 
doubted by Mr. Furnivall from the first. He says 
concerning Biondello's description of Petruchio's 
horse, " Was that cattle-disease book's catalogue 
of the horse's ailments his [Shakespeare's], fond 
as he is of a list of names or qualities ? [Cp. I. ii. 
81.] Was this one up to his level? " 1 So far, we 
have not found that Shakespeare has anything to 
do with Biondello. 

The same character, Biondello, soon makes an- 
other speech that is questionable. It consists of 
five two-accent lines of rhymed doggerel (III. ii. 
84-8). These may be quoted from a ballad, as 
Collier suggests, but such a piece of barren dialec- 
tics does not acquire any significance or fitness 
because of being quoted. This sort of verse does 
not come in the parts of the play that we have 
assigned to Shakespeare. Biondello talks in simi- 
lar fashion again in "and so may you, sir ; and so, 
adieu, sir" (IV. iv. 101-2). A third passage, 
printed as prose in the Globe Edition, is Grumio's 
"Knock you here, sir! why, sir, what am I, sir, that 
I should knock you here, sir ? " (I. ii. 9-10). The 
writer would give none of these parts to Shake- 

1 Transactions New Shakspere Society, 1874, p. 105. 



228 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

speare. Grumio's words, " Now were I not a little 
pot and soon hot," etc., stand on a different footing 
(IV. i. 5-6). This rhyming proverb is still current 
in the mouths of Englishmen, and it is thoroughly 
woven into the prose of Grumio's speech. 

The lines which follow the entrance of Petruchio 
and Grumio (89-125) do make a decidedly Shake- 
spearean impression upon one. It seems as if the 
master may have written these speeches for his fa- 
vorite Petruchio. A passage of thirty-two lines in 
" A Shrew " shows the same situation that is found 
here ; in some respects the two plays are closely 
parallel in these portions. These lines in " The 
Shrew " may be accepted as Shakespeare's. 

Before noticing that Furnivall had proposed the 
same question, the writer found himself obliged to 
ask whether II. i. 115-68 should not be given 
to Shakespeare. At the beginning of the passage, 
Petruchio asks Baptista, point-blank, upon what 
terms he can have Katharine for his wife. A some- 
what similar conference between the correspond- 
ing characters, Ferando and Alfonso, comes in " A 
Shrew," but they refer to a previous agreement. 
Then comes Hortensio's frightened account of his 
treatment by the shrew while trying to give her a 
music lesson. This incident, which is here nar- 
rated, is directly presented in "A Shrew" in a 
full scene. The style of these fifty-four lines is 
distinctly Shakespearean. Observe : — 

" Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste, 
And every day I cannot come to woo." 

LI. 115-6. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 229 

" I did but tell her she mistook her frets, 

And bow'd her hand to teach her fingering ; 

When, with a most impatient devilish spirit, 
* Frets, call you these ? ' quoth she ; ' I '11 fume with them : ' 

And, with that word, she struck me on the head, 

While she did call me rascal fiddler 

And twang-ling Jack ; with twenty such vile terms, 

As had she studied to misuse me so." 

LI. 150-60. 

Line 159 recalls Portia's " A thousand raw tricks 
of these bragging Jacks." 1 

It is in favor of these lines that they immediately 
precede a passage which has already been confi- 
dently assigned to Shakespeare. It is easy to think 
of him as writing this introduction to the part which 
fell to him at this point according to the plan of 
authorship. Let us add this passage to the others 
that have been attributed to Shakespeare. 

There are no other passages which have any 
good claim to be considered as Shakespeare's. 

The following table shows in a convenient form 
how all the parts of " The Taming of the Shrew " 
have been assigned. 



Shakespeare. 
Non-Shakespearean. 



Induction, i. and ii. 

I. i. ; I. ii. ; II. i. 1-114 



Shakespeare. 
Non-Shakespearean. 



II. i. 115-326 

II. i. 327-413 ; III. i. ; III. ii. 1- 



Shakespeare. 
Non-Shakespearean. 



III. ii. 89-125 in. ii. 186-241 

III. ii. 126-85 



Shakespeare. 
Non-Shakespearean. 



IV. i. IV.iii. 

III. ii. 242-54 IV. ii. IV. iv. 



Shakespeare. 
Non-Shakespearean 



IV. v. V. ii. 1-181 

V. i. V. ii. 182-9. 



1 Merchant of Venice, III. iv. 77. 



230 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 



In the next table are given those parts of " The 
Shrew " which either Fleay, Furnivall, or the writer 
assigns to Shakespeare, but in reference to which 
their views do not agree. 



Fleay. 


Furnivall. 
Before seeing 
Fleay's table. 


Furnivall. 
After seeing" 
Fleay's table. 


Tolman. 


III. ii. 1-129. 
III. ii.151-185. 


Induction. 

II. i. 115-168 (?). 


Induction. 

II. i. 115-168 (?). 
(See Leopold 

Shaks.) 

III. ii. 1-125. 
III. ii. 151-185. 


Induction. 
II. i. 115-168. 

III.ii.89-125. 


III. ii. 151-185. 





It now remains to go through the play and de- 
termine what lines, half lines, phrases, and " slight 
touches " which may seem worthy of Shakespeare 
actually come from him. But the power to make 
such a division, possessed by some critics of Shake- 
speare, has been denied to the writer. This fac- 
ulty deserves to rank not far below the power 
of prophecy or the gift of tongues. It has, how- 
ever, one disadvantage. After its possessor has 
once determined intuitively all the Shakespearean 
" touches " in a play, there is no known method 
by which he can secure the acceptance of his views 
on the part of a doubting, and, it may be, a scoffing 
world. 

Let us now consider the Induction of " The 
Taming of the Shrew." 

Farmer, who thinks that the body of the play 
can have only " occasional improvements " from the 
hand of Shakespeare, is careful to say that the 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 231 

" whole Induction " is by him, and that it is in his 
" best manner." Later critics have acquiesced in 
this view concerning the Induction, so far as I 
know, until we come to Mr. Fleay. His rejection 
of the Induction, doubtful when first made, is very 
decided in his " Shakespeare Manual " (1878). 

In Furnivall's comments upon Meay's original 
paper we find the following effectual words : — 

"That Shakspere's hand is clearly seen in the re- 
toucht Induction, even in its opening lines, seems to me 
impossible to deny. The bits about the hounds, the War- 
wickshire places, Sly's talk, the music, pictures, &c, are 
Shakspere to the life. With Mr. Grant White, 1 I claim 
the whole for him." 

The Induction of " The Shrew " is very similar in 
plan to that of " A Shrew." In the other Shake- 
spearean parts of " The Shrew," however, we con- 
stantly meet phrases and lines which are found 
in " A Shrew " in almost the same form. In the 
Induction Shakespeare seems to have performed 
his task with especial love ; one mark of this is 
the great length, comparatively, of this part in 
" The Shrew." In some respects the plot of this 
Induction is superior to that of the correspond- 
ing portion of "A Shrew." There is also a more 
complete difference of language than we find else- 
where in " The Shrew." Something like three full 
lines, and enough phrases to make four lines more 
out of a total of 285 lines, agree very exactly with 
the language of the Induction of " A Shrew." We 

1 For the passage from White, see p. 213. 



232 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

do not know, however, that "A Shrew" is the 
original of " The Shrew." 

Since Shakespeare's authorship of the Induction 
of " The Shrew " has been doubted, though I cannot 
understand upon what grounds, it may be well to 
give a few passages, mostly from the undoubted 
plays, which bear some clear resemblance to parts 
of the Induction. 

Ind. i. 42. — " Believe me, lord, I think he cannot 

choose." 
Tern. I. ii. 186. — " And give it way : I know thou canst 

not choose." 

Ind. i. 51. — " To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound." 
A M.-N. Dream, II. i. 151. — " Uttering such dulcet 
and harmonious breath." 

Ind. i. 68. — "If it be husbanded with modesty." 
Ham. III. ii. 21. — "... o'erstep not the modesty of 
nature." 

Ind. i. 83. — Hamlet reminds the players in the same 
way of a play in which he once saw them act. 

See Ham. II. ii. 454 ff. 

Ind. i. 101. — " Were he the veriest antic in the world." 
I. Hy. IV. I. ii. 68-9. — "... the rusty curb of old 
father antic the law." 

Ind. i. 106. — " And see him dressed in all suits like a 

lady." 
A. Y. L. I. I. Hi. 118. — " That I did suit me all points 

like a man." 

Ind. i. 128. — " Shall in despite enforce a watery eye." 
A M.-N. D. III. i. 203. — " The moon methinks looks 
with a watery eye." 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 233 

Ind. ii. 33. — " Call home thy ancient thoughts from 

banishment." 
Rich. II. I. Hi. 212. — " Return with welcome home 

from banishment." 
Rich. II. I. iv. 21. — " When time shall call him home 

from banishment." 

Ind. ii. 36. — " Each in his office ready at thy beck." 
Ham. III. i. 127-8. — " . . . with more offences at 
my beck than I have thoughts to put them in." 

Ind. ii. 38. — " And twenty caged nightingales do sing." 
The Shrew, II. i. 172. — " She sings as sweetly as a 
nightingale." 

Ind. ii. 47 " Thy hounds shall make the welkin an- 
swer them 
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth." 

A. M.-N. D. IV. i. 115. — " And mark the musical 
confusion 
Of hounds and echo in conjunction. 

The skies, the fountains, every region near 
Seem'd all one mutual cry." 

Ind. ii. 53. — " And Cytherea all in sedges hid." 
W. Tale, IV. iv. 120. — " . . . violets dim, 

But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 

Or Cytherea's breath." 

The epithet in the following passage seems full 
of Shakespearean force : — 

Ind. ii. 64. — " Thou hast a lady far more beautiful 
Than any woman in this waning age." 

But the same phrase " waning age," in II. i. 403, 
is not Shakespeare's. 



234 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

" . . . your father were a fool 

To give thee all, and in his waning age 

Set foot under thy table." 

Shakespeare's task seems to have been, in a word, 
to write the Induction and the actual taming of 
Katharine by Petruchio. His associate took the 
task of furnishing a subordinate plot which should 
serve as a setting for this main action. The sugges- 
tions for this subordinate action were taken from 
« The Supposes." 

Let us now look for any peculiarities in the 
language of " The Shrew " which may serve to 
confirm our results or to call them in question. 

The contractions, 'point, 'pointed, 'cerns, and 
'leges, which occur only in this play, have already 
been mentioned. 1 

The doubtful character of arguments drawn from 
words which occur only in a single play has been 
pointed out by Mr. R. Simpson. 2 It seems strange 
that the following words occur in the genuine parts 
of this play, and nowhere else in Shakespeare: jugs 
(Ind. ii. 90), undress (Ind. ii. 119), mother-wit 
(II. i. 265), incredible (II. i. 308), tripe (IV. iii. 
20), frolic (as verb, IV. iii. 184). We can only 
console ourselves with the thought, " It is a part of 
probability that a great many improbable things will 
happen." On the whole, the words occurring in the 
non-Shakespearean parts of this play and not in the 
other plays seem to be more striking still. Some of 

1 See p. 226. 

2 Transactions New Shakspere Society, 1874, p. 114. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 235 

them are : plash (I. i. 23), stoics (I. i. 31), meta- 
physics (I. i. 37), longly ( = longingly, I. i. 170), 
trance (1- i. 182), trot ( = old hag, I. ii. 80), seen 
( = versed, educated, I. ii. 134), clang (I. ii. 207), 
contrive ( = spend, wear out, I. ii. 276), pithy (III. 
i. 68), slit (V. i. 134). Especially deserving of at- 
tention are the following words, inasmuch as they 
occur more than once in the non-Shakespearean 
portions of this play, and not at all in the other 
plays : specially (I. i. 20 and 121), mathematics 
(I. i. 37; II. i. 56 and 82), dough (I. i. 110 and 
V. i. 145), wish ( = recommend, I. i. 113; I. ii. 
60 and 64), gamut (III. i. 67, 71, 72, 73, 79). 
Schmidt's Lexicon gives nineteen cases of the form 
especially. The word constantly used by Shake- 
speare in the meaning of to recommend is the 
simple verb to commend. 

This treacherous argument seems to have some 
force in favor of our general division of the play, 
but is of no use in confirming the details of that 
work. 

The word agreement occurs four times in the 
plays; once in "I. Henry IV." (I. iii. 103), and 
three times in the non-Shakespearean parts of " The 
Shrew " (I. ii. 183 and IV. iv. 33 and 50). The 
accent is peculiar in 

" No worse than I upon some dgTeeme , nt. ,, 

IV. iv. 33. 

Act I. Scene ii. (not by Shakespeare) shows a 
striking jumble of prose, doggerel rhyme, and 
blank verse. 



236 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

One line of the play requires especial atten- 
tion, — 

" For to supply the places at the table." 

III. ii. 249. 

Richard Grant White says, " Shakespeare and 
Marlowe never use this uncouth old idiom [for 
to~\ which, though found in some of the literature 
of their day, seems even then to have been thought 
inelegant." l Schmidt's Lexicon enables us to cor- 
rect White at this point. There are at least eight 
other cases of for to in the thirty-seven plays 
usually printed as Shakespeare's. 2 However, this 
line, " For to supply the places at the table," 
perhaps deserves some suspicion. 

" The frequent stress laid upon unemphatic syl- 
lables " and the fondness for inversion, which Dr. 
Abbott notes in the opening lines of the play, 3 
reappear in the other non-Shakespearean parts of 
the play. Note the following passages : — 

" But to her love concerneth us to add 
Her father's liking : which to bring* to pass, 
As I before imparted to your worship, 
I am to get a man, — whate'er he be, 
It skills not much, we 11 fit him to our turn, — 
And he shall be Vincentio of Pisa." 

III. ii. 130-5. 

" And, for the good report I hear of you 
And for the lo^e he beareth to your daughter 
And she to him, to stay him not too long, 

1 Shakespeare's Works, vol. vii. (1859), p. 431, Essay on the Au- 
thorship of Henry VI 

2 The new third edition of Schmidt does not cite Hamlet, V. i. 
104. 

8 Transactions New Shakspere Society, 1874, p. 121. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 237 

I am content, in a good father's care, 

To have him match'd ; and if you please to like 

No worse than I, upon some agreement 

Me shall you find ready and willing 

With one consent to have her so bestow'd ; 

For curious I cannot be with you, 

Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well." 

IV. iv. 28-37. 



The frequency of Latin and Italian quotations in 
this play is noticeable. These all cohie in the non- 
Shakespearean parts. The length of the Italian 
quotations is striking. See especially Act I. Scene 
ii. Sly's blundering " paucas pallabris " (Ind. i. 5) 
happens to be from the Spanish (for " pocas pala- 
bras ") ; and it has no smack of pedantry or false 
realism on the part of the author. 

The great number of classical and learned allu- 
sions in the non-Shakespearean parts of " The 
Shrew " has attracted attention. Though one part 
of the Induction, too, is filled with names taken from 
classical mythology, yet the especial fitness of these 
" wanton pictures " is noticeable. 

The metrical differences between the Shake- 
spearean and non-Shakespearean parts of the play 
are very striking — much more convincing, of 
course, than they could be if we had made them 
the principal consideration in dividing up the play. 
Where we have made any peculiarity a ground for 
rejecting a passage, as in III. ii. 84-8, it would 
be reasoning in a circle to look upon the table as 
giving any confirmation to our view, except as we 
omit from the table the passage in dispute. In pre- 



238 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 



paring these figures, the Globe text of " The Shrew " 
has been followed. Only totals are here given. 1 



Shake- 
spearean. 

Non- 
Shake- 
spearean. 



05 
• S 

1262 
1387 


00 

O 

£ 

8 
o 

a 

241 
345 


a 

1 

1021 
1042 


0Q 

H 
960 

935 


02 

a> 

a 

»r 

o 2 
"8*3 

33 
68 


Heroic lines, 

feminine 

endings. 


6 

a 

>> 

30 
124 


<o 
bo 
be 
o 

fi 



46 


Short verse 

lines, 
not whole 
speeches. 


Short verse 
o{ £g lines, whole 
speeches. 


187 
167 


31 

36 



10 



The most striking fact about the table is that 
Shakespeare's associate has all of the doggerel and 
more than four fifths of the rhyme. 

I will call especial attention, farther, only to the 
run-on lines. Konig, 2 in his discussion of Enjambe- 
ment in Shakespeare, shows very clearly that many 
factors come into play here, and that it is impossi- 
ble to make a sharp division of the heroic lines in 
a play into two distinct classes, " stopt " and " un- 
stopt." Lines have here been reckoned as " stopt " 
whenever possible, L e. whenever it seems at all 
natural to read a line in such a way as to give a 
clear pause at the end. Hence the total falls below 
those of Furnivall and Konig. Furnivall finds 121 
" unstopt " lines in the play, out of 1930 five-beat 

1 The great difference between the number of " feminine 
endings" in this table (354) and the total number of " double 
endings" as given in the Leopold Shakspere (260) may be due 
partly to the fact that many endings in Shakespeare's use have 
sometimes the value of two syllables and sometimes that of one 
syllable. 

2 Der Vers in Shaksperes Br amen (Quellen und Forschungen, 
lxi.), p. 97. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 239 

verses (6.3 per cent.). The present writer finds 
101 such lines out of 1895 (5.3 per cent.). Konig 
finds 8.1 per cent. As Furnivall has already 
pointed out, the associate uses these lines much 
more freely than Shakespeare. 

Fleay's elaborate discussion of the authorship of 
" The Shrew " 1 is very unsatisfactory. After giving 
specimens of six classes of metrical peculiarities in e 
this play, he says, "These peculiarities of metre 
are enough of themselves to show that the greater 
part of this play is not Shakspere's." He then 
adds a seventh peculiarity, " the frequent contrac- 
tion of the word ' Gentlemen ' into ' Gent 'men.' " 
He gives eight specimens under his first class, but 
six of them come in the parts of the play which he 
afterwards assigns to Shakespeare (see Furnivall' s 
comment). Of a second peculiarity, he gives eleven 
specimens, afterwards assigning four of them to 
Shakespeare. Many of the lines given under his 
third class seem to belong elsewhere. 2 Of the seven 
that I can read as Fleay does, he afterwards gives 
four to Shakespeare. The five lines in his fourth 
class can easily be read in a different manner, and 
probably should be. One of them is afterwards 
given to Shakespeare. The fifth class is composed 
of " the doggerel lines, chiefly of four measures in 
each line." Fleay's statement, " Lines like these 
of four measures occur nowhere elsQ in Shake- 

1 Transactions New Shakspere Society, 1874, and Shakespeare 
Manual. 

2 See Konig, p. 84. 



240 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

speare," is simply amazing. In Act III. Scene i. of 
" The Comedy of Errors," Fleay can find a hatful 
of such lines. They occur, also, in other plays. 1 Of 
Fleay's sixth class of peculiarities, Shakespeare 
finally gets more than the associate. Konig finds 
the use of gentleman as equivalent to two syllables 
to be a frequent thing throughout the dramas. 2 

At the close of his paper Fleay gives typical 
passages illustrating the different styles to be 
found in this play. Here he questions Shake- 
speare's authorship of that peculiar and significant 
feature of " The Shrew," the scolding speech of 
Petruchio in IV. iii., beginning " O monstrous 
arrogance ! " He takes away from Shakespeare 
another passage in the same scene. These passages 
have already been unquestioningly attributed to 
the poet in Fleay's own table. 

There are some differences between the various 
non-Shakespearean parts of " The Shrew " which 
suggest the possibility that Shakespeare had more 
than one helper in the production of this play. 
The strutting rhetoric of the opening speeches does 
not again appear. The situations of Act I. are 
also found in " A Shrew." Otherwise the non- 
Shakespearean parts borrow especially from " The 
Supposes." A large number of the peculiar words 
already noticed as occurring in " The Shrew " and 
not in other plays of the First Folio, 3 appear in 
this act. But we have seen that " the frequent 
stress laid upon unemphatic syllables " and the 

1 See Konig, p. 120. 2 Page 35. 8 See p. 235. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 241 

fondness for inversion are common both to the 
non-Shakespearean parts which come earlier in 
the play and to the later ones. 1 The differences 
between the various non-Shakespearean portions 
do not seem greater, on the whole, than those which 
may well mark different portions of the work of 
one author. 

Upon what terms did Shakespeare and his helper 
divide their work between them ? 

Shakespeare wrote, as we believe, the Induction 
and the core of the main play, the actual taming of 
the shrew, giving practically his entire attention to 
but three characters, — Petruchio, Katharine, and 
Grumio. We naturally conjecture that he wrote 
his part first, and then handed it over to the asso- 
ciate for completion, but of this we cannot be sure. 
The associate contributed the subordinate plot, the 
contest for the hand of Bianca. The suggestions 
for this story came from " The Supposes." 

The question to what dramatic type " The Tam- 
ing of the Shrew " belongs is an interesting one. 
Where shall this play be classified among the 
works of its author ? Mr. Furnivall has called it a 
farce ; and Mr. Ellis said flatly, " This play is an 
outrageous farce, and that must be fully borne in 
mind." 2 This term the present writer cannot ac- 
cept. Undoubtedly the story of the shrew attracted 
Shakespeare primarily by the fun and the go in it, 
by its many humorous situations, by all its fullness 

1 See p. 236. 
2 Transactions New Shakspere Society, 1874, pp. 110 and 119. 



242 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 

of dramatic life. But a prime difference between 
Shakespeare and other playwrights was that he 
found it easy and natural to minister to men's minds 
and hearts at the same time that he was convulsing 
them with laughter and filling his own pockets. 
The story of the shrew naturally tempted to a 
farcical treatment ; and the fact that Petruchio 
decides before he has yet seen her to woo Katha- 
rine makes us unprepared for the genuine and wise 
affection that he afterward displays. Judging him 
by the standards of Shakespeare's age — standards 
which still have their belated advocates — and judg- 
ing him by the requirements which Katharine's 
character puts upon him, Petruchio's conduct, 
broadly speaking, is noble and thoroughly wise. 
This wise love, finally, in one victory, saves him 
from the shrew and the shrew from herself. This 
salvation of the nobler Katharine is the central 
action of the play ; and such a play is no farce. 
This opinion will be challenged by many, and it 
may need some modification. Perhaps the final 
judgment will not vary much from that expressed 
in the following careful words of Professor Dow- 
den : a — 

" The Katharine and Petruchio scenes border upon 
the farcical, but Shakspere's interest in the characters 
of the Shrew and her tamer keep these scenes from 
passing into downright farce." 

1 Shakspere Primer, p. 102. 



I 



SHAKESPEARE'S 
"LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON" 



SHAKESPEARE'S 
"LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON"* 

In 1598 a volume appeared which furnishes per- 
haps the most important single piece of evidence 
that we have concerning the reputation that Shake- 
speare's writings enjoyed among the men of his 
own day. This book, " Palladis Tamia. | WITS 
TREASVRY | Being the Second part | of Wits 
Common | wealth," 2 was written by Francis Meres, 
" Maister of Artes of both Universities." The 
portion which especially interests us is a sketch, 
or short treatise, which comes near the end of the 
work, and bears the title " A comparatiue discourse 
of our English Poets, with the Greeke, Latine, and 
Italian Poets." " Wytts Treasurye," as it is called 
in the " Stationers' Register," was entered at Sta- 
tioners' Hall on the 7th of September, 1598. Halli- 
well-Phillipps thinks that the sketch that concerns 
us, the " comparatiue discourse," was surely written 
in the summer of 1598, since it contains a notice 

1 Reprinted from The Decennial Publications of the University 
of Chicago, First Series, vol. vii. pp. 159-90, where it had the 
title "What Has Become of Shakespeare's Play ' Love's Labour 's 
Won ' ? " The bibliographical notes have here been much abbre- 
viated. 

2 C. M. Ingleby, Shakspere Allusion-Books, Part I. (London, 
1874), p. 151. 



246 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

of the book of satires by Marston which was re- 
gistered on the 27th of the preceding May as 
" The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image, and 
Satyres." 2 We cannot be entirely certain about 
this, however. Meres was so exceptionally well 
acquainted with the literary productions of his day 
that he mentions certain works which were not 
printed until some years after the appearance of his 
own book, and some others which are not known 
to have been printed at all. Indeed, one of his ref- 
erences to Shakespeare is to those " sugred Sonnets 
among his priuate friends " that were not published 
until eleven years later — and are not explained 
yet. 

Attention was called to Meres's book by Thomas 
Percy in 1765, 2 and more fully by Thomas Tyr- 
whitt in 1766. 3 

In the elaborate sentences in which Meres sets 
Elizabethan over against ancient writers, Shake- 
speare is mentioned by name nine times. Also, 
when Meres speaks of " these declining and corrupt 
times, when there is nothing but rogery in villanous 
man," 4 he is certainly quoting Falstaff 's utterance : 
" There is nothing but roguery to be found in 
villanous man" (I. Henry IV. II. iv. 137, 138). 

1 Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, 10th 
ed. (London, 1898), vol. ii. pp. 148, 149 ; Arber, Transcript of the 
Stationers 1 Registers, vol. iii. p. 116. 

2 Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, vol. i. p. 191, in remarks 
upon the ballad Gernutus the Jew of Venice. 

8 Observations and Conjectures upon Some Passages of Shake- 
speare (Oxford, 1766), pp. 15, 16. 

4 Shakspere Allusion-Books, Part I. p. 159. 



LOVE'S LABOUR 'S WON 247 

We shall look now at three of the passages which 
contain Shakespeare's name ; the other six will be 
cited later. 1 

"As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to Hue 
in Pythagoras : so the sweete wittie soule of Ouid Hues 
in mellifluous & hony-tongued Shakespeare, witnes his 
Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets 
among his priuate friends, &c. 

" As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for 
Comedy and Tragedy among the Latines : so Shake- 
speare among the English is the most exceUent in both 
kinds for the stage ; for Comedy, witnes his Gentle- 
men of Verona, his Errors, his Lone labors lost, his 
Lone labours wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, & 
his Merchant of Venice : for Tragedy his Richard 
the 2. Richard the 3. Henry the 4. King John, Titus 
Andronicus and his Romeo and Iuliet. 

" As Epius Stolo said, that the Muses would speake 
with Plautus tongue, if they would speak Latin : so I 
say that the Muses would speak with Shakespeares fine 
filed phrase, if they would speake English." 

It seems clear that Meres classifies all the dramas 
of Shakespeare as either comedies or tragedies. 
Undoubtedly, also, any play is to him a tragedy in 
which an important character dies. Thus it hap- 
pens that two plays, the first and second parts of 
" Henry IV.," which present at his best the great- 
est comic figure in all literature, Falstaff, are to- 
gether referred to as a tragedy, Henry the 4. 

1 The entire " eomparatiue discourse, " with several preceding 
pages, is printed in Shakspere Allusion-Books, Part I., edited by 
C. M. Ingleby, published for the New Shakspere Society (Lon- 
don, 1874), pp. 151-67. 



248 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

No play has come down to us bearing the name 
Loue labours wonne. What play did Meres have 
in mind when he used this title ? 

Of course it is possible that this drama has been 
lost, though students of Shakespeare have not gen- 
erally considered this likely. 

If " Love's Labour 's Won " 1 has not disappeared, 
the name must belong in some way to one of the 
plays now in our possession. The reference in Meres 
may represent one of two titles which were in use 
at the same time, both applying to some drama 
that we now have, and to the form in which we 
have it. There are two dramas in the First Folio 
edition of Shakespeare's plays to which double 
titles are given in the table of contents and in the 
page headings : " Twelfe Night, or, What you 
will," and " Othello, the Moore of Venice." The 
second of these is practically a double title ; the 
earliest known reference to the play (by Wurmsser 
von Vendenheym, in 1610) calls it " 1' histoire du 
More de Venise." 2 

On the opening page of each of five historical plays 
in the Folio, an elongated title appears, though not 
in the table of contents or in the ordinary page head- 
ings. These full designations are : " The First Part 
of Henry the Fourth, with the Life and Death of 
Henry Sirnamed Hot-spurre " ; " The Second Part 

1 The question of the proper form and interpretation of the 
titles Love's Labour 's Lost and Love's Labour 's Won, will be con- 
sidered in full under the discussion of Much Ado About Nothing. 
See pp. 283-90. 

2 Shakespeare's Centurie of Pray se, 2d ed. (London, 1879), p. 93. 



LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 249 

of Henry the Fourth, Containing his Death : and 
the Coronation of King Henry the Fift " ; " The 
second Part of Henry the Sixt, with the death 
of the Good Duke Humfrey " ; " The third Part 
of Henry the Sixt, with the death of the Duke of 
Yorke " ; " The Tragedy of Richard the Third : with 
the Landing of Earle Richmond, and the Battell 
at Bosworth Field." These long appellations may 
fairly be classed with double titles. 

Mr. H. P. Stokes thinks the evidence conclusive 
that the following plays of Shakespeare, in addi- 
tion to " Othello " and " Twelfth Night," were each 
" (generally or occasionally) known by [two] dif- 
ferent names : " " the Merchant of Venice, or the 
6 Jew of Venice ' ; Merry Wives of Windsor, or 
6 Sir John Falstaff ' ; 1 Henry IV., or ' Hotspur ' ; 
Henry V, or 6 Agincourt ' ; 2 and 3 Henry VI, 
or ' York and Lancaster,' &c. ; Henry VIII, or 
6 All is True ' ; Much Ado, &c, or ' Benedick and 
Beatrice'; Jidius Caesar, or 'Caesar's Tragedy.'" 1 

Another possibility is that some play of Shake- 
speare now in existence represents the revised form 
of the earlier play known as " Love's Labour 's 
Won." In this case the probability would be that 
the title " Love's Labour 's Won " was dropped, 
and the present name given to the new form at the 
time of the revision. It is so probable as to be 
almost certain that the play which appears in the 
page headings of the First Folio as " The second 

1 Chronological Order of Shakespeare's Plays (London, 1878), 
p. 110, note. 



250 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

Part of Henry the Sixt " received this name when 
the play took its present shape. The former title, 
" The First part of the Contention betwixt the 
two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster," 
etc., appears on the title-page of the older ver- 
sion, first printed in 1594, out of which, with 
many alterations and additions, the play in the 
Folio was made. The play sometimes given in the 
page headings of the Folio as " The third Part of 
Henry the Sixt," sometimes as " The third Part of 
King Henry the Sixt," bears a similar relation to 
the supposedly older play u The true Tragedie 
of Richard Duke of Yorke," etc., printed 1595. 
Whether in these two cases Shakespeare wrote any 
portion of the older plays is a question upon which 
scholars are not agreed. But this difference of 
opinion concerning the origin of two dramas in the 
Shakespearean canon is enough to suggest the pos- 
sibility that some comedy of Shakespeare that we 
now have may have been known in an earlier ver- 
sion as " Love's Labour 's Won." 

It is also possible that " Love's Labour 's Won " 
received a new name without undergoing any change 
of form. If such were the case, we may presume 
that this new title commended itself as an improve- 
ment upon the old. 

The following, then, would seem to be the possi- 
ble explanations why no play has come down to us 
with the title a Love's Labour 's Won " : first, the 
play so designated is no longer extant ; second, it 
once bore a double title, and the name by which 



LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 251 

we now know it is only a portion of its former full 
appellation ; third, the change of the name " Love's 
Labour 's Won " to that which now designates some 
one of the comedies that we know, was connected in 
some way with a revision of the play ; fourth, the 
title was changed for some other reason, presumably 
to secure one that was more appropriate. 

Let us assume that " Love's Labour 's Won " has 
come down to us in some form ; and let us bear in 
mind the fact that no positive evidence connects 
this title with any particular comedy of Shake- 
speare. What conditions, then, ought one of the 
comedies to satisfy, and what characteristics ought 
it to possess, if it is to establish as good a claim 
as possible, in the absence of definite external evi- 
dence, to be identified with Meres's Loue labours 
wonne ? 

A first requirement seems to be that the comedy 
selected shall not appear by name in Meres's list. 
Strangely enough, however, two of the solutions 
that have been proposed identify " Love's Labour 's 
Won " respectively with " Love's Labour 's Lost " 
and " A Midsummer-Night's Dream," though both 
of these plays are mentioned by Meres. There is 
an evident presumption against these views. 

A second requirement is, of course, that any 
comedy which is to represent " Love's Labour 's 
Won " must have been in existence in some form 
as early as 1598. In the absence of definite exter- 
nal testimony, a great variety of evidence bearing 
upon the probable date of a particular play may 
need to be considered. 



252 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

That the title " Love's Labour 's Won " should 
aptly designate the course of the action in the play 
which we suppose to have been thus named, seems 
to be a third reasonable requirement. It is not 
entirely clear, however, that we have a right to 
expect that the name in question shall apply with 
peculiar fitness. The companion play, " Love's 
Labour 's Lost," is not very happily named. Tieck 
recognized this by giving to the German transla- 
tion the title " Liebes Leid und Lust." It may 
seem probable, just for this reason, that the other 
of the two parallel designations was peculiarly apt. 
But even if we were to accept this inconclusive ar- 
gument as sound, we should not be greatly helped, 
since the phrase " Love's Labour 's Won " is almost 
a formula for the action of a romantic comedy. We 
may almost exalt it to a class name and speak of 
the love's-labour 's-won comedies. Few good Eng- 
lish comedies would fail to be included in this class. 
Says Furness : — 

" Under Love labours wo?ine, I suppose he [Meres] 
may have had in mind any one of several Comedies, 
wherein the labours of love were successful, as they 
generally are in all Comedies." * 

The similarity of the names " Love's Labour 's 
Lost " and " Love's Labour 's Won " leads us to 
expect parallelisms and correspondences between 
the plays themselves. Considerations of this nature 
may be of some service in testing the claim of any 

1 Preface to Variorum edition of Much Ado About Nothing 
(Philadelphia, 1899), p. xiv. 



LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 253 

comedy to be accepted as having once borne the 
second of these designations. 

Just how far the two plays may fairly be ex- 
pected to correspond in structure it is hard to say. 
The dramatist is so dependent upon the nature of 
his material that a very high degree of structural 
agreement, or similarity, even between two com- 
panion pieces, is hardly to be looked for. Still, 
some correspondence of action to action, feature to 
feature, and character to character, would be prob- 
able. 

We should expect the two companion plays to be 
similar in style and versification. Especially should 
we expect them to agree in tone, in spirit and men- 
tal attitude, in the mood which produced them and 
the mood which they produce. As one expression of 
this, about the same proportion of jest and earnest 
would probably appear in each. 

It seems probable, also, that the play referred 
to by Meres, if compared with " Love's Labour 's 
Lost," would show many detailed similarities of 
thought and expression. 

We have thus mentioned seven criteria, of various 
degrees of cogency, by which we may test the pro- 
posal to accept any particular comedy of Shake- 
speare as " Love's Labour 's Won " under another 
name. To summarize these seven points in a few 
words, we may call them : absence from Meres's 
list, date, aptness of Meres's title, similarity to 
" Love's Labour 's Lost " in structure, in style and 
versification, in tone, in details of thought and 



254 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

language. In treating each separate theory that 
we take up, it will usually be sufficient to refer to 
only those topics, or tests, among the seven just 
mentioned, under which definite evidence is pre- 
sented. 

The various theories which have been advanced 
concerning " Love's Labour 's Won " will be con- 
sidered in the following order : — 

I. That " Love's Labour 's Won " has been 

lost. 
II. That it is to be identified with " Love's 
Labour 's Lost." 

III. With « A Midsummer-Night's Dream." 

IV. With « The Tempest." 

V. With "All's Well That Ends Well." 
VI. With « Much Ado About Nothing." 
VII. With « The Taming of the Shrew." 
It will be useful to have before us also the chro- 
nological order in which these theories were made 
public. So far as the writer can determine, the 
above views were put forth in the following suc- 
cession : 1 — 

1. " All 's Well " ; proposed by Farmer in 
1767. 

2. " The Tempest " ; by Hunter, 1839. 

3. " Love's Labour 's Lost " ; by a writer in 
"The Quarterly Review," 1840. 

4. That " Love's Labour 's Won " has been lost ; 
proposed by the same Quarterly Reviewer, 
as an alternative solution, 1840. 

1 References will be given later under the separate theories. 



THE PLAY HAS BEEN LOST 255 

5. "The Taming of the Shrew"; by Craik, 
1857. 

6. " Much Ado About Nothing " ; by Brae, 1860. 

7. " A Midsummer-Night's Dream " ; by von 
Westenholz, 1902. 

As might be expected, many believe that the 
question will never admit of any fairly decisive set- 
tlement unless new evidence bearing upon it shall 
come to light. This inability to form any decided 
opinion may perhaps be said to constitute an eighth 
answer to the problem ; but it has seemed best not 
to classify and treat this together with the seven 
more positive theories. The statements of some 
who hold this opinion against opinions, or incline 
toward it, will be noted at the close of the paper. 

I. THE VIEW THAT THE PLAY CALLED " LOVE'S 
LABOUR 'S WON " HAS BEEN LOST 

A writer in the " Quarterly Review " is the sole 
representative of the theory concerning " Love's 
Labour 's Won " which is to be discussed in the next 
division of this paper. 1 As an alternative to that 
theory, however, he considers the view that the play 
in question has been lost, to have much probability. 
In opposing Hunter's advocacy of " The Tempest " 
as the play sought for, he says : — 

" Why should Mr. Hunter think it improbable that 
a play of. Shakespeare's should be lost ? Surely, in the 
troubled times of the fanatical and anti-theatrical gen- 
eration which succeeded him, it was much more probable 

1 Pages 257-62. 



256 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

that, unless published immediately after his death, any 
work of our immortal dramatist's should be destroyed 
than preserved." 1 

Halliwell-Phillipps expresses the opinion that our 
play may have entirely disappeared. His words 
are: — 

" ' Love Labors Won/ a production which is no- 
where else alluded to, is one of the numerous works of 
that time which have long since perished, unless its 
graceful appellation be the original or a secondary title 
of some other comedy." 2 

In his recent " Introduction to Shakespeare " 
Professor Dowden puts the matter thus : — 

" The i Love's Labour 's Won,' which Meres names, 
may be a lost play of Shakespeare, or possibly, as has 
been conjectured, 6 All 's Well that Ends Well/ in an 
earlier form may have borne this title." 3 

The fact that Fletcher's comedy "The Wild- 
Goose Chase " had been " long lost " when the Fo- 
lio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher appeared in 
1647, might be thought to support the hypothesis 
now before us concerning " Love's Labour 's Won." 
But the publisher in his address to the readers 
lamented the absence of " The Wild-Goose Chase " 
as the only omission in his volume. Moreover, the 
play was soon recovered, and was published in 1652. 4 

1 Quarterly Review, vol. lxv. (1840), p. 481. 

2 Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, 10th ed. (London, 1898), 
vol. i. p. 172. 

3 London and New York, no date, p. 30. 

4 Ward, A History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. ii. 
2d ed. (London, 1899), p. 707. 



LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST 257 

We should note, however, that there is no early 
mention of " All 's Well that Ends Well," or allu- 
sion to it, l also that the only supposed early refer- 
ence to " Measure for Measure " is one that we 
could not possibly recognize if we did not possess 
the text. 2 It is not impossible that an early comedy 
of Shakespeare should so far disappear from men's 
knowledge that the only trace to reach us should 
be the mention of the title by a single writer. We 
cannot be sure that no early and relatively unim- 
portant play of Shakespeare had disappeared, sim- 
ply because the editors of the Folio said nothing 
about any such loss. 

II. "love's labour's lost" 

The Quarterly Reviewer whose article has been 
noticed in the previous section offers also the fol- 
lowing suggestion : — 

" May not ' Love's Labours Won ' be the second part 
of the title of ' Love's Labours Lost ' ? The passage in 
Meres, where the names immediately follow each other, 
would seem to countenance such a conjecture ; and the 
story of the comedy would fully bear it out. In it ' Love's 
Labours ' — comic labours — are both lost and won : lost, 
because they led to a year of penance ; and won, because, 
at the end of that year, they were to receive their re- 
ward." 

- 

The fact, already referred to, that Tieck gave 
the title " Liebes Leid und Lust " to the German 

1 Herford, Eversley Shakespeare, vol. iii. p. 111. 

2 Ibid. p. 231. 



258 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

translation of this play is an interesting recognition 
of the truth of the last sentence quoted. 

When one reads the passage from Meres that 
furnishes the basis of our whole discussion, it seems 
perfectly clear that he mentions by name six dif- 
ferent tragedies and six different comedies, all by 
Shakespeare. Dowden makes the natural comment ; 
" It will be noticed that Meres mentions six plays of 
each kind, preserving a balanced symmetry which 
he affects." Dowden then adds : " Possibly he made 
omissions, possibly he pressed into his list the 
doubtful ' Titus,' with the object of equalizing the 
number of tragedies and comedies named by him." 1 

How far does Meres " affect a balanced symme- 
try " in the sketch where occurs the passage that we 
are seeking to interpret ? It is impossible for us to 
reprint the entire essay ; but, as the six remaining 
references to Shakespeare fairly represent the style 
of the disquisition, and as they have an independent 
interest for students of the great dramatist, they 
are given here : — 

" As the Greeke tongue is made famous and eloquent 
by Homer, Hesiod, Euripedes, Aeschilus, Sophocles, 
Pindarus, Phocylides, and Aristophanes; and the 
Latine tongue by Virgill, Ouid, Horace, Silius Italicus, 
Lucanus, Lucretius, Ansonius and Claudianus ; so the 
English tongue is mightily enriched, and gorgeouslie 
inuested in rare ornaments and resplendent abiliments 
by Sir Philip Sidney, Spencer, Daniel, Drayton, War- 
ner, Shakespeare, Marlow and Chapman. 

1 Shakspere Primer (New York, 1879), p. 34. 



LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST 259 

"As Ouid saith of his worke ; 

Iamque opus exegi, quod nee Iouis ira, nee ignis, 
Nee poterit ferrum, nee edax abolere vetustas. 1 

" And as Horace saith of his ; Exegi monumentum 
aere perennius ; Regalique situ pyramidum altius; 
Quod non imber edax; Non Aquilo impotens possit 
diruere ; aut innumerabilis annorum series & fuga 
temporum : 2 so say I severally of sir Philip Sidneys, 
Spencers, Daniels, Draytons, Shakespeares, and War- 
ners worlces ; 

Non Iouis ira : imbres : Mars : ferrum : Jlamma, senectus, 

Hoc opus unda : lues : turbo : venena ruent. 
Et quanquam ad pulcherrimum hoc opus euertendum tres Mi Dij 

conspirabunt, Cronus, Vulcanus, Sf pater ipse gentis; 
Non tamen annorum series, non flamma, nee ensis, 

Aeternum potuit hoc abolere Decus. 3 

" As Pindarus, Anacreon and Callimachus among 
the Greekes ; and Horace and Catullus among the La- 

1 And now my work is done, which not Jove's wrath, nor fire, 
Shall e'er destroy, nor sword, nor gnawing tooth of time. 

2 I 've reared a lofty monument, 
More lasting far than time-defying bronze, 
And higher than the royal pyramids ; 
And this no biting storm, nor whirlwind's rage, 
Nor flight of time in countless sum of years 
Can overthrow. 

3 Neither the wrath of Jove, nor storm, nor war, nor sword, nor 

flame, nor age, 
Shall bring this work to naught, nor flood, nor plague, nor whirl- 
wind's might, nor poison's baleful power. 
And though to overthrow this beauteous monument, three mighty 

gods 
Conspire, old Cronus, Vulcan, and the very father of our race, 
Still neither flight of years, nor flame, nor sword, 
Has power to dim the immortal splendor of this song. 



260 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

tines are the best Lyrick Poets : so in this faculty the 
best among our Poets are Spencer who excelleth in all 
kinds) * Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, Bretton. 

" As these Tragicke Poets flourished in Greece, 
Aeschylus, Euripedes, Sophocles, Alexander Aetolus, 
Achaeus Erithriaeus, Astydamas Atheniensis, Apollo- 
dorus Tarsensis, Nicomachus Phrygius, Thespis Atti- 
cus, and Timon Apolloniates ; and these among the 
Latines, Accius, M. Attilius, Pomponius Secundus and 
Seneca ; so these are our best for Tragedie, the Lord 
Buckhurst, Doctor Leg of Cambridge, Doctor Edes of 
Oxforde, maister Edward Ferris, the Authour of the 
Mirrour for Magistrates, Marlow, Peele, Watson, Kid, 
Shakespeare, Drayton, Chapman, Decker and Benia- 
min Johnson. 



"The best Poets for Comedy among the Greeks are 
these, Menander, Aristophanes, Eupolis Atheniensis, 
Alexis Terius, Nicostratus, Amipsias Atheniensis, An- 
ajctoVvd* Ides Rhodius, Aristonymus, Archippus Atheni- 
ensis and Callias Atheniensis ; and among the Latines, 
Plautus, Terence, Naeuius, Sext. Turpilius, Licinius 
Lmbrex, and Virgilius Romanus : so the best for Comedy 
amongst vs bee, Edward Earle of Oxforde, Doctor 
Gager of Oxforde, Maister Rowley once a rare Scholler 
of learned Pembrooke Hall in Cambridge, Maister Ed- 
wardes one of her Maiesties Chappell, eloquent and wit- 
tie John Lilly, Lodge, Gascoyne, Greene, Shakespeare, 
Thomas Nash, Thomas Heywood, Anthony Mundye 
our best plotter, Chapman, Porter, Wilson, Hathway, 
and Henry Chettle. 

" As these are famous among the Greeks for Elegie, 
1 Reproducing the punctuation of the original. 



LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST 261 

Melanthus, Mymnerus Colophonius, Olympius Mysius, 
Parthenius Nicaeus, Philetas Cous, Theogenes Mega- 
rensis and Pigres Halicarnassaeus ; and these among 
the Latines, Maecenas, Ouid, Tibullus, Propertius, T. 
Valgius, Cassius Seuerus & Clodius Sabinus ; so these 
are the most passionate among vs to bewaile and bemoane 
the perplexities of Loue, Henrie Howard Earle of Sur- 
rey, sir Thomas Wyat the elder, sir Francis Brian, sir 
Philip Sidney, sir Walter Rawley, sir Edward Dyer, 
Spencer, Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, Whetstone, 
Gascoyne, Samuell Page sometimes fellowe of Corpus 
Christi Colledge in Oxford, Churchyard, Bretton" 1 

In the first of the above passages, eight Greek 
and eight Roman writers are mated with eight Eliz- 
abethans. In the second passage, there is no " bal- 
anced symmetry. " In each of the four remaining 
quotations there seems to be some attempt to make 
the number of classical writers mentioned ecj^jal +o 
the number of Englishmen ; but under the elegiac 
poets, according to the punctuation of Ingleby and 
Arber, fifteen English writers are set over against 
seven Greeks and seven Romans. The symmetry 
of the passage concerning " Poets for Comedy " is 
imperfect, ten Greek and six Roman writers being 
balanced by seventeen Elizabethans. 

The suggestion of the Quarterly Reviewer is, 
practically, that Meres pressed into service the 
double title of a single comedy in order to secure a 
merely formal symmetry, and thus make the titles of 
five comedies balance those of six tragedies. Since 

1 Shakspere Allusion-Books, edited by C. M. Ingleby (London, 
1874), Part I. pp. 157, 160-2. 



262 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

a similar explanation is brought forward more dis- 
tinctly by von Westenholz in the next division of 
this paper, the discussion of the question will be 
deferred until then. The natural presumption is 
against this method of meeting the difficulty. 

III. "a midsummer-night's dream" 

The view just examined makes " Love's Labour 's 
Won " another name for the play " Love's Labour 's 
Lost." But there is about the same grammatical 
and prima facie basis for another suggestion, 
namely, that " Love's Labour 's Won " is the first 
title, or the first half of the title, of the comedy 
which follows it in Meres's list, " A Midsummer- 
Night's Dream." This view seems to have been 
first put forward in 1902 in an acute and gracefully 
WjTr«Jf£t article by a German scholar, Professor von 
Westenholz. 1 

If we disregard for the moment the manifest ob- 
jection that Meres seems to mention six different 
comedies to balance six tragedies, it is really sur- 
prising how much von Westenholz finds in support 
of his conjecture. He insists that in a play which 
is to be identified with " Love's Labour 's Won," 
we must expect to find a parallelism with " Love's 
Labour 's Lost " corresponding to the intentional 
parallelism in the titles. Agreement in the general 
tone, and marked correspondences in the action and 
the characters, are to be looked for. 

1 " Shakespeares i Gewonnene Liebesmiih,' " in the Beilage zur 
Allgemeinen Zeitung, January 14, 1902, pp. 77-9. 




A MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM 263 

Von Westenholz finds only two comedies of 
Shakespeare which in general plan and in tone can 
be accepted as mentally and spiritually related to 
" Love's Labour 's Lost." These are " As You Like 
It " and " A Midsummer-Night's Dream " ; and 
in the former of these the other correspondences 
desired are wanting. 

This critic considers that the Duke, Lysander, 
and Demetrius, in " A Midsummer-Night's Dream," 
correspond to three of the lovers in " Love's 
Labour 's Lost," the King, Longaville, and Dumain. 
He even finds the agreement in the initials of the 
courtiers' names to be significant, since the Eliza- 
bethans did " something affect the letter." 

Biron as a lover has no analogue in " A Mid- 
summer-Night's Dream," but as humorist and 
interpreter of the action we find a counterpart 
in Puck. It is Biron and Puck who express the 
difference in the outcome of the two plays in 
contrasted passages, which remind us at once of 
the titles " Love's Labour 's Lost " and " Love's 
Labour 's Won " : — 

" Our wooing doth not end like an old play ; 
Jack hath not Jill." 

L. L. Lost, V. ii. 884-5. 

" Jack shall have Jill ; 
Nought shall go ill." 

A M.-N. Dream, III. ii. 461-2. 

The daring suggestion jts made that perhaps 
Puck is called Robin because that name contains 
the same letters that are in Biron. We may add 



264 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

that the strange identification of the dainty Puck 
with Robin Goodfellow (A M.-N. D. II. i. 34), 
the toiling " lubber fiend " of Milton's " L' Allegro," 
is thus given a still stranger explanation. 

Von Westenholz sets over against each other the 
play, or procession, of the Nine Worthies, in one 
comedy, and the foolish characters who produce it, 
and, in the other, the play of Py ramus and Thisbe, 
and the craftsmen-actors. This is in many ways 
a striking parallel. The correspondence which is 
noted between Armado's lofty wooing of Jaque- 
netta and Titania's infatuation for Bottom is less 
marked. 

The fact that Bottom jests with each of the other 
servants of Titania but not with Moth (A M.-N. 
D. III. i. ; IV. i.), von Westenholz explains by 
the bold supposition that Moth was a character 
added after the completion of the play, solely for 
the purpose of reminding us of the little page bear- 
ing that name in " Love's Labour 's Lost." 

It is suggested by von Westenholz that " Love's 
Labour 's Lost " failed to keep the stage because of 
its weakness as an acting play; that this setting 
aside of its companion piece took away the special 
significance of the title " Love's Labour 's Won " ; 
and that the play which had borne this last name 
came to be known later as " A Midsummer-Night's 
Dream." This new appellation should be inter- 
preted as a fanciful suggestion concerning the origin 
of the play ; thus we escape the difficulty that the 
action closes on the evening of May Day. Meres 



A MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM 265 

is supposed to have used the double title both for 
the sake of greater clearness, the play having borne 
each name in turn, and especially that he might 
preserve a superficial balance between the two 
parts of his list. 

To say that Meres put in a double title for one 
comedy in order to preserve an outward equality 
between the two divisions of his catalogue, skillfully 
turns the flank of those who have relied upon the 
symmetry and balance of the " comparatiue dis- 
course " as proving that each half of the list con- 
tains six plays. According to von Westenholz, 
Meres was indeed so fond of outward symmetry 
that he was content to balance six titles represent- 
ing five comedies against six titles representing six 
tragedies. In saying this, von Westenholz is really 
supporting the theory of the Quarterly Reviewer 
concerning " Love's Labour 's Lost," examined in 
the previous section, just as much as his own. 

One cannot help feeling that it would have been 
more natural for Francis Meres to drop one of 
the tragedies from his catalogue, naming only five 
dramas of each kind, than to set over against an 
actual play a mere cipher, a dummy title. He cer- 
tainly could not hope by this misleading device to 
deceive the men of his own day, for whom he wrote. 

Von Westenholz might well have called atten- 
tion to the fact known to all that the Folio and the 
early quartos do not show us a single play of Henry 
the 4, as cited by Meres, but two plays, " The 
First Part of King Henry the Fourth " and " The 



266 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

Second Part of King Henry the Fourth." Even if 
we admit that Meres felt his title Henry the 4 to 
represent two closely related dramas and not one 
long drama, this method of reducing or compress- 
ing seven titles to six in the list of tragedies offers 
little support to the conjecture that five real titles 
were extended to six apparent ones in the list of 
comedies. 

The form of the expression in Meres seems almost 
conclusive against both von Westenholz and the 
Quarterly Reviewer. The titles in Meres's list 
must surely designate separate plays, since each one 
is preceded by the word " his " : " witnes his Gen- 
tlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Loue labors lost, 
his Loue labours wonne, his Midsummers night 
dreame, & his Merchant of Venice.''' 

It is noticeable, too, that Meres shortens all but 
one of the titles in this list of comedies that we can 
positively identify, one of them being reduced to 
the single word Errors. It is entirely improbable 
that a long and elaborate double title is present. 

The First Folio, as is well known, prints the 
plays of Shakespeare in three separate divisions, 
called in the preliminary " Catalogue," or table of 
contents, " Comedies, Histories, Tragedies " ; and 
the " Histories," the plays named from English 
kings subsequent to the Norman Conquest, are given 
in their historical order. Von Westenholz argues 
from these facts that it is very probable that the 
order in which the plays are printed in the two other 
divisions of the Folio is based upon some real prin- 



A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM 267 

ciple or principles, although the existing arrange- 
ment has not seemed to show any distinct plan. 
He finds it significant that " Love's Labour 's Lost " 
is followed immediately in the Folio by what he 
believes to be its companion play, " A Midsummer- 
Night's Dream." Meres names these two plays to- 
gether and in the same order, if we admit that " A 
Midsummer-Night's Dream " is first designated by 
a former title, " Love's Labour 's Won." 

It is a striking fact, which the present writer 
has not seen noted, that the comedies named by 
Meres, disregarding the uncertain "Love's La- 
bour 's Won," are printed in the Folio in the order 
in which he names them, though not consecutively. 
This is made clear in the following table : — 

Folio Order. Order in Meres. 

The Tempest. 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Gentlemen of Verona. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor. 
Measure for Measure. 

The Comedy of Errors. Errors. 

Much Ado about Nothing. 
Love's Labour 's Lost. Loue labors lost. 

Loue labours wonne. 
A Midsummer-Night's Dream. Midsummers night dreame. 

The Merchant of Venice. Merchant of Venice. 

As You Like It. 
The Taming of the Shrew. 
All 's WeU that Ends Well. 
Twelfth Night ; or, What You Will. 
The Winter's Tale. 

How shall we account for this strange agreement 
in the order of the Folio and of Meres ? Can it be 
that the editors of the Folio were acquainted with 



268 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

the passage in the " comparatiue discourse," and 
consciously or unconsciously made their arrange- 
ment agree therewith? If the list of Meres is to 
conform throughout to the order of the Folio, as it 
does in the case of the five known comedies which it 
contains, then we are limited, apparently, to the 
three theories concerning "Love's Labour 's Won " 
that have now been presented, namely : " Love's 
Labour 's Won " has been lost ; the name is a sec- 
ond title for " Love's Labour 's Lost " ; the name 
is a first title for " A Midsummer-Night's Dream." 
Some of the arguments of von Westenholz have 
undeniable force ; and the acuteness and skill with 
which he has worked out and presented his theory 
almost blind one to its fundamental difficulty. 

IV. " THE TEMPEST " 

Much attention has been given during the past 
thirty years to the question of the chronological 
order in which Shakespeare's plays were written. 
The progressive development of Shakespeare's 
mind and art has been studied more carefully than 
ever before. Every student of the subject knows 
that, as one result of this inquiry, " The Tempest " 
has come to be accepted as one of the latest plays 
of its great author. The comedy shows in a high 
degree those peculiarities of versification, style, and 
spirit which have been found to mark the closing 
period of Shakespeare's writing. It seems really 
impossible that the play can have been in exist- 
ence at the time when Meres wrote his " compara- 
tiue discourse." 



THE TEMPEST 269 

We shall therefore give but little space to the 
theory of the Rev. Joseph Hunter that " Love's 
Labour 's Won " is a name that was once given 
to " The Tempest." This view was published in 
a separate "Disquisition" in 1839, and Hunter 
enlarged and fortified his statement of it in his 
" New Illustrations of Shakespeare " in 1845. 1 

" In what way is it," asks Hunter, " that Prosper o 
makes trial of the love of Ferdinand for Miranda ? How, 
but by imposing upon him certain labours ? The par- 
ticular kind of labour is the placing in a pile logs of 
firewood. He serves in this as Jacob did for Rachel, 
winning his bride from her austere father by them. In 
other words he proves the sincerity of his affection to the 
satisfaction of Pros'pero by the faithfulness with which 
he performs these labours, and thus his love labours win 
the consent of Prospero to their union." 

Concerning Hunter's fundamental contention 
that " Love's Labour 's Won " is a fitting designa- 
tion for " The Tempest," Knight observes : — 

" Our belief in the significancy of Shakspere's titles 
would be at an end if even a ' main incident ' was to 
suggest a name, instead of the general course of the 
thought or action." 2 

Says Furness upon the same point : — 

" For us who are not convinced by Hunter's argu- 
ments, it is sufficient to remember that Prospero's 

1 Vol. i. Part II. pp. 123-89. Abundant extracts are given in 
Furness' s Variorum edition of The Tempest (Philadelphia, 1892), 
pp. 284-94. 

2 Ed. Shakspere, 2d ed. (London, 1842), Introduction to All 's 
Well, vol. i. p. 335. 



270 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

object in subjecting the young Prince to his power was 
gained as much after the first [log] had been carried, 
as after the thousandth, and that the labour in itself 
amounted to nothing, and could really win nothing ; 
Miranda's hand was not set as the price of it, and in fact 
Prospero had adopted Ferdinand as his future son-in- 
law before he was shipwrecked, so that it could not have 
been any labours of Ferdinand that won Miranda." l 

Hunter was never able to gain adherents to his 
view, and the later developments of Shakespear- 
ean study have deprived this theory both of proba- 
bility and interest. The further arguments for 
and against it are accessible in Furness's edition of 
" The Tempest," and need not be detailed here. 

V. " ALL 'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL " 

Farmer, in his essay " On the Learning of 
Shakespeare," 1767, was presumably the first to 
offer a suggestion as to the meaning of the enig- 
matical title found in Meres. He speaks of " All 's 
Well that Ends Well, or, as I suppose it to have 
been sometimes called, Love's Labour Wonne." 2 

Farmer's conjecture was probably suggested by 
the fitness of the title " Love's Labour 's Won," 
considered by itself, to serve as a designation for 
« All 's Well." Malone, in 1778, in the first edi- 
tion of his essay, " An Attempt to Ascertain the 
Order in which the Plays of Shakespeare Were 
Written," accepted Farmer's conjecture, and gave 

1 Variorum edition of The Tempest, p. 288. 

2 The Boswell-Malone Variorum edition of Shakespeare (Lon- 
don, 1821), vol. i. p. 314. 



ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL 271 

to "All's Well" the date 1598, the very year 
when we are to suppose that it is mentioned by 
Meres under another name. " No other of our au- 
thor's plays," Malone declared, " could have borne 
that title [' Love's Labour 's Won '] with so much 
propriety." 1 Nevertheless, the mature style of 
certain portions caused Malone later to assign 
1606 as a more probable date for the writing of 
this comedy. 2 

The difficulty which compelled this scholar to 
abandon his first opinion would probably have pre- 
vented a general acceptance of Farmer's conjec- 
ture, had not another peculiarity of " All 's Well " 
made it seem entirely feasible to combine in one 
theory all that was essential in both of Malone's 
opinions, apparently contradictory though they 
were. According to Collier, Coleridge expressed 
the opinion u in 1811, and again in 1818, though 
it is not found in his ' Literary Remains,' that 
1 All 's Well that Ends Well,' as it has come down 
to us, was written at two different and rather dis- 
tant periods of the poet's life. He pointed out 
very clearly two distinct styles, not only of thought, 
but of expression." 3 

In his " Lectures on Shakspere," as now col- 
lected and published, Coleridge speaks of " All 's 
Well " as having been " originally intended as the 

1 Ed. Shakspeare (London, 1790), vol. i. Part I. p. 319. 

2 The Boswell-Malone Variorum Shakespeare of 1821, vol. ii. 
p. 406. 

8 Ed. Shakespeare, J. P. Collier, 2d ed. (London, 1858), vol. ii. 
p. 529. 



272 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

counterpart of 'Love's Labour's Lost.'' It is 
clear, therefore, that he accepted the suggestion of 
Farmer also. 

Two facts already indicated — the prima facie 
fitness of the title " Love's Labour 's Won " to 
designate the play of " All 's Well," and the ap- 
parent existence in the play side by side of two 
widely dissimilar styles of writing — have led per- 
haps the majority of Shakespearean students at 
the same time to accept the identification proposed 
by Farmer, and to admit that portions of " All 's 
Well" are later than 1598. While no two of 
these critics would express themselves in just the 
same way, Collier's statement of the matter is a 
fairly representative one : — 

"My notion is that 'All's Well that Ends Well' 
was in the first instance, and prior to 1598, called 
' Love 's Labour 's Won/ and that it had a clear refer- 
ence to ' Love's Labour 's Lost/ of which it might be 
considered the counterpart. It was then, perhaps, laid 
by for some years, and revived by its author, with alter- 
ations and additions, about 1605 or 1606, when the 
new title of 'All's Well that Ends Well' was given 
to it." x 

The theory that in the title Loue labours 
wonne Meres refers to an earlier form of the play 
"All's Well that Ends Well" has been held by 
Coleridge (as already indicated), Tieck, Collier 
(already cited), Lloyd, Verplanck, Dyce, White, 
Gervinus, von Friesen, Ward, Elze, Fleay (first 

1 Ed. Shakespeare, 1858, vol. ii. p. 530. 






ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL 273 

opinion), Furnivall, Stokes, Hudson, Boyle, Bran- 
des, and Herford. 1 

Other scholars identify "All's Well" with 
"Love's Labour's Won" without any reference 
to the question whether or not it ever underwent a 
revision. This is in general the position of Farmer 
(already cited), of Drake (who was perhaps igno- 
rant of Coleridge's opinion), of Ulrici, Knight, 
Staunton, Delius, W. Kbnig, Kreyssig, and Sidney 
Lee. 2 

The critics just named attach no importance to 
the suggestion that "All's Well" experienced 
revision. Knight, to be sure, speaks of the possi- 
bility that the comedy may have been first pro- 
duced " in an imperfect form.' W. Konig thinks 
that a later revision, if it took place at all, can- 
not have been of any importance. Delius finds 

1 A reference is here given only when the bibliographies at 
the close of the last four volumes of Furness's Variorum Shake- 
speare — A Midsummer-Nighfs Dream, The Winter's Tale, Much 
Ado, Twelfth Night — do not suffice. In these bibliographies the 
editions of Shakespeare are arranged chronologically, and all 
other works alphabetically by authors. Tieck is quoted by 
Knight, and Verplanck by White. The 5th edition of Dyce, the 
2d of Ward, the 5th of the translation of Gervinus, have been 
used. The following references are not in Furness : von Friesen, 
Jahrbuch of the German Shakespeare Society, vol. ii. pp. 48-54 ; 
Fleay, Shakespeare Manual, 1876, pp. 224-6 ; Boyle, " ' All 's Well 
that Ends Well ' and ' Love's Labour 's Won,' " Englische Studien, 
vol. xiv. pp. 408-21 ; Herford, Eversley Shakespeare, vol. iii. pp. 
111-8. 

2 Knight has been used in the 2d edition, Kreyssig in the 3d. 
Delius, Shaksperes Werke, 1864, " Einleitung zu All 's Well " ; 
W. Konig, Jahrbuch of the German Shakespeare Society, vol. x. 
p. 215 ; Lee, Life of William Shakespeare, p. 162. 



274 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

no grounds for the view that " All 's Well " was 
composed at different periods. He gives the date 
as 1598, on account of the supposed reference in 
Meres, but says that the style of the play would 
suggest a later period. 

Some of those who uphold the view of Coleridge 
are very positive in asserting that " All 's Well " 
contains passages written at widely separated dates. 
White and Verplanck state that they formed this 
opinion before learning that it had been held by 
Coleridge. Hudson and Boyle think that the con- 
trast between the two styles, " the Poet's rawest 
and ripest styles " (Hudson), is pronounced. Furni- 
vall declares that " no intelligent person can read 
the play without being struck by the contrast of 
early and late work in it." 

Boyle has probably presented more fully and 
carefully than any one else the evidence for the 
view that " All 's Well " has been revised from an 
earlier version ; while Hertzberg, who does not ac- 
cept the identification with " Love's Labour's Won," 
has given the only detailed argument known to the 
present writer in support of the opinion of Delius 
that " All 's Well " was written at one burst. 1 

The outline of this controversy that is given here 
must be brief. The following passage is a specimen 
of those parts of " All 's Well " that are considered 
to be of early date : — 

1 Shakespeares dramatische Werke, nach der Uebersetzung- von 
Schlegel und Tieck, herausgegeben durch die deutsche Sh.-Ge- 
sellschaft, 2te Aufl. 1897 ; Einleitung zu Ende gut, Alles gut, vol. 
xi. pp. 345-62. 



ALL >S WELL THA T ENDS WELL 275 

" Helena. The great'st grace lending grace, 

Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring 
Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring, 
Ere twice in murk and occidental damp 
Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp, 
Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass 
Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass, 
What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly, 
Health shall live free and sickness freely die." 

II. i. 163-71. 

The Marlowe-like rhetoric and the youthful for- 
malism of these lines are noticeable. Other portions 
of the play that appear to show Shakespeare's early 
style are : Helena's rhymed soliloquy at the close 
of the first scene — I. i. 231-44 ; and the indeli- 
cate conversation a little earlier between Helena 
and Parolles — I. i. 121-78. The hiatus at line 179 
seems to indicate that parts have been carelessly 
patched together. 

Shakespeare's earlier versification appears to 
mark portions of "All's Well." All passages in 
which rhymes are abundant have been called early 
by some, irrespective of deeper considerations. Her- 
ford has carefully discriminated and summarized 
the evidence from the rhyme. 1 Some rhymed pas- 
sages are plainly of an early type. Hertzberg points 
out the number and quality of the run-on lines (en- 
jambements) in the last speech of the first scene, 
as a proof that it cannot be early ; but the follow- 
ing run-on lines in " Love's Labour 's Lost " show 
that he has made too much of this : — 

1 Eversley Shakespeare, vol. iii. pp. 111-3. 



276 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

(Biron.) M This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, 
That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice 
In honourable terms : nay, he can sing 
A mean most meanly ; and in ushering 
Mend him who can." 

V. ii. 325-9. 

Other run-on lines are found near these, for exam- 
ple: V. ii. 343, 351, 355, 367, 376, 408, 416. 

Arguments for the early date of portions of 
" All 's Well " have been found in the colorless 
personality of the clown and his lack of connection 
with the action ; * in the fact that Parolles seems a 
first sketch for Falstaff (Tieck) ; in the indelicate 
conversations ; in the agreements of thought be- 
tween the dialogue of Helena and Parolles already 
referred to (I. i. 121-78) and the first seventeen 
of the Sonnets (these dwell upon the duty of hav- 
ing offspring) ; and in the inconsistencies in the 
portrayal of Helena and Parolles. 2 

A few features suggest a special connection of 
" All's Well " with " Love's Labour's Lost." The 
First and Second Lords in one play and one of 
the four suitors in the other have the same name, 
Dumain. Certain similarities exist between the 
characters Parolles and Armado. 3 The tone of 
the indecorous jesting in the two plays is very 
similar. 

No better example can be given of the mature 
manner that marks portions of " All 's Well " than 

1 Von Friesen, Jahrbuch, vol. ii. p. 52. 

2 Boyle, Eng. Studien, vol. xiv. pp. 416-8. 

3 Brandes, William Shakespeare, one-vol. ed., p. 49. 



ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL 277 

the farewell words of the Countess to Bertram. This 
advice reminds us of that given by Polonius to La- 
ertes, but surpasses that both in brevity and depth. 

" Countess. Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father 
In manners, as in shape ! thy blood and virtue 
Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness 
Share with thy birthright ! Love all, trust a few, 
Do wrong to none : be able for thine enemy 
Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend 
Under thy own life's key : be check'd for silence, 
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will, 
That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down, 
Fall on thy head!" 

I. i. 70-9. 

Other passages showing Shakespeare's riper style 
are : Helena's soliloquy expressing her love for 
Bertram — I. i. 90-109 ; and her decision to leave 
Rousillon — III. ii. 102-32. 

Some of the maturer passages in " All 's Well " 
have parallels in " Hamlet " and " Measure for 
Measure." 1 One connection with "Hamlet " has 
just been pointed out. 

The disagreements between the dates assigned 
to this play by reputable critics demand some such 
explanation as that afforded by the theory that an 
early play or fragment was afterward revised or 
completed. The dates of Knight, 1589-93, and 
Ulrici, 1591-2, are in marked contrast with that 
of Malone, 2 1606. Such a difference of opinion as 
this concerning the date of a play of Shakespeare 
can hardly be paralleled. 

1 Boyle, p. 416 ; Brandes, pp. 393 ff. 

2 The Boswell-Malone Variorum, 1821, vol. ii. p. 406. 



278 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

A direct reference to the supposed former title 
of the comedy has been seen by some in one line 
of " All 's Well," and a possible reference to its two 
names in another line : — 

(Helena) " Will you be mine, now you are doubly won ? " 

V. iii. 315. 

(King.) " All is well ended, if this suit be won, 
That you express content." 

V. iii. 336-7 (Epilogue). 

Boyle has pointed out some inadvertences and 
inconsistencies which seem to him to support the 
view that the play experienced revision, but they 
hardly prove anything more than carelessness. 

The different conjectures as to when and why 
the supposed former title of this play was replaced 
by the present one are of interest. The usual view 
is the one already expressed by Collier, namely, 
that the comedy once existed in an earlier form, 
which was known as "Love's Labour 's Won; " that 
when it was revised into its present condition the 
new form received the new name. The frequent 
references to the proverbial title, "All's Well 
that Ends Well," occur in passages showing the 
later style (IV. iv. 35 ; V. i. 25 ; V. iii. 333, 
336), and are usually looked upon as intentional 
references to the new name that was already se- 
lected. Malone, in stating his first opinion, conjec- 
tured that it was the presence of the proverb in the 
text that brought about the change of name. 1 
Staunton thinks that the play " was originally in- 

1 Ed. Shakspeare (London, 1790), vol. i. Part I. p. 319. 



ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL 279 

tituled ' Love's Labour 's Won ; or, All 's Well 
that Ends Well.' ' Ulrici and Kreyssig suggest 
that the change was made in order to avoid in- 
appropriate comparisons between this play and 
" Love's Labour 's Lost." 

The consciousness of having a large majority of 
Shakespearean scholars with them has led some of 
the later advocates of " All 's Well " to speak with 
unwarranted confidence. Brandes goes so far as to 
say: — 

" Since it is scarcely conceivable that a play of Shake- 
speare's, once acted, should have been entirely lost, the 
only question is, which of the extant comedies originally 
bore that title [' Love's Labour 's Won '] . But in reality 
there is no question at all : the play is ' All 's Well that 
Ends Well ' — not, of course, as we now possess it, in 
a form and style belonging to a quite mature period 
of the poet's life, but as it stood before the searching 
revision, of which it shows evident traces." 1 

In spite of the popularity of the view that " All 's 
Well " was referred to by Meres as " Love's La- 
bour 's Won," and in spite of the arguments in its 
favor, there are grave objections. " All 's Well " 
has, indeed, certain characteristics that seem to 
favor its claim, but it has also fundamental deficien- 
cies. In the first place, no close connection between 
this comedy and its supposed brother play has been 
pointed out. The marked correspondences and par- 
allelisms between the two pieces which we properly 
expect to find do not exist. The titles " Love's 

1 William Shakespeare, one-vol. ed. (New York, 1899), p. 47. 



280 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

Labour 's Lost " and " Love's Labour 's Won " seem 
intended to designate companion plays. "All's 
Well" is not a good companion piece to "Love's 
Labour 's Lost," and it seems safe to say that it 
never was. 

Furthermore, there is a marked contrast in tone, 
in mood, between these two plays that are sup- 
posed to have been thus closely associated ; and this 
contrast can hardly have been preceded in an ear- 
lier version of "All 's Well" by any genuine and 
deep-seated agreement. The central situation of 
" All 's Well," the desperate venture of the indom- 
itable Helena, would be intolerable if treated in 
the tone of easy banter that distinguishes " Love's 
Labour 's Lost." A Helena who was not funda- 
mentally serious would be nothing — yes, worse 
than nothing. 

" All 's Well " satisfies some of the conditions, 
then, that must be met by a play that is a candi- 
date for the title " Love's Labour 's Won " ; what 
may fairly be termed the more fundamental condi- 
tions it does not satisfy. 

Kenny uttered some plain truth on this subject 
nearly forty years ago, when he said : — 

" Coleridge believed that < All 's Well that Ends Well ' 
was originally intended as the counterpart of * Love's 
Labour 's Lost.' But we can discover no indication of 
any such intention, and there is, we think, as little re- 
semblance between the two works as between any other 
two comedies of their author." l 

1 The Life and Genius of Shakespeare (London, 18G4), p. 202. 



ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL 281 
Ingleby tells us : — 

•" i Love[s] Labours Wonne ' . . . has not been sat- 
isfactorily identified with any of the plays in our collec- 
tion. For one thing, we do not think it likely to be 
' All 's Well that Ends Well/ as Farmer conjectured, 
which, in our opinion, offers no sufficient resemblance 
or contrast to serve as a pendant to ' Loves Labours 
Lost.'" 1 

With the following well-considered words of von 
Westenholz we close this division of the subject: 

" But even if the action of ' All 's Well that Ends 
Well ' were to justify more than that of any other com- 
edy the title ' Love's Labour 's Won,' there is still a very 
important consideration that has been left out of count. 
That title evidently did not attach itself to the play, at 
least not primarily, for the sake of the play itself ; rather 
did the drama receive it as a deliberate contrast to the 
already existing ' Love's Labour 's Lost.' 

" The same parallelism, however, which existed be- 
tween the two titles must naturally have been evident 
also in the two plays themselves, showing itself in the 
occurrences, the persons, and above all in the character 
of the dramas, or, in other words, in the atmosphere 
which seems to envelop the action. 

" Especially in the last respect, it would be hard to 
find in the entire series of Shakespearean comedies two 
which have less in common than these. In the one, we 
have an almost total absence of dramatic action, but 
a half-romantic background, a graceful playing with 
words, a sparkling fire of wit ; in the other, the sub- 
ject-matter, couched in weighty, often coarse language, 

1 Shakspere Allusion-Books, Part I. (London, 1874), General 
Intro, p. xxiv. 



282 LOVE'S LABOUR 'S WON 

is earnest, serious rather than comic in its nature ; and 
the harsh, sometimes painful elements even the art of 
Shakespeare could only mitigate, not suppress." x 

VI. "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING" 

In the year 1860, in an anonymous book, Mr. 
A. E. Brae argued that " Much Ado " should be 
accepted as the true " Love's Labour 's Won." 2 

The date of 1599 is usually given to " Much 
Ado," because it seems to be omitted from Meres's 
list of 1598, while it was published in quarto form 
in 1600. The title-page of this first edition tells 
us that " it hath been sundrie times publikely acted 
by the right honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his 
seruants." There is no grave difficulty, therefore, 
about the date ; especially since, as Furness points 
out, the two other comedies which were published 
in 1600, " A Midsummer-Night's Dream " and 
"The Merchant of Venice," are found in Meres. 

Brae would apply the title " Love's Labour 's 
Won " to the story of Benedict and Beatrice. The 
name " Much Ado about Nothing " plainly applies 
to the action of Claudio and Hero. The refer- 
ence to a play " called Benedicte and Betteris " in 
an item in the Lord-Treasurer Stanhope's Accounts 
for May 20, 1613, suggests " that the present title 

1 Translated from Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung, January 14, 
1902, p. 78. 

2 Collier, Coleridge, and Shakespeare, by the author of Literary 
Cookery (London, 1860), chap. vi. pp. 131-48. The extracts in 
Furness's Variorum edition of Much Ado (Philadelphia, 1899), 
pp. 367-71, are ample. 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING 283 

was not always adhered to." l Halliwell-Phillipps 
says, also, " that Charles the First, in his copy of 
the Second Folio, preserved in Windsor Castle, 
has added the names ' Benedick and Beatrice,' as 
a second title." 2 

Before we examine Brae's interpretation of the 
titles " Love's Labour 's Lost " and " Love's La- 
bour 's Won," let us see what authority we have for 
the exact form in which they are usually given. 
We have noted that the two designations appear 
in Meres as Loue labors lost and Loue labours 
wonne. " Loues labors lost " is the form on the 
title-page of the first quarto of the play. The head- 
line of each right-hand page throughout the book is 
Loues Labor 's lost. In the quarto the apostrophe 
frequently marks the abbreviation 's for is, but 
seems not to be used before an -s that denotes 
a possessive case, a plural of a noun, or the third 
singular indicative of a verb. It seems clear, there- 
fore, as Furnivall points out, 3 that Labor's is 
meant as a contraction for Labor is. 

The First Folio has Loues Labour lost in the 
preliminary " Catalogue," or table of contents, and 
Loues Labour 's lost as the heading for each page 
of the text. The proper form of the title in modern 

1 Furness, Much Ado, pp. xxi, 368. 

2 The quotation is from Furness, Much Ado, p. xxii. He cites 
"Halliwell, Outlines, etc., p. 262," as his authority. The state- 
ment is not in the 10th ed. of the Outlines. Professor I. N. Dem- 
mon finds that it was in the 2d ed. (1882). 

3 Griggs, Facsimile of the First Quarto of Love's Labour 's Lost, 
note to p. iii of Forewords. 



284 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

spelling would therefore seem to be " Love's La- 
bo(u)r 's Lost." The corresponding title would 
naturally be " Love's Labo(u)r 's Won." 

Hertzberg feels, however, that in the case of 
"Love's Labour 's Won," the Labour's must be 
interpreted as an abbreviation for Labour has, 
since one does not win labour, though he may lose 
labour. 1 Probably this difficulty will not seem im- 
portant to one whose native tongue is English. It 
is easy to interpret labour as put by metonymy 
for the object of the labour, the desired result. 
Then " Love's Labour 's Won " would mean " the 
desired result of the labor is won, has been ob- 
tained." This explanation would also apply to the 
companion title, if desired. Hertzberg could find 
no example in Shakespeare of the use of 's as an 
abbreviation for has ; but a difficult expression 
in " The Tempest " is thought by many to be an 
example of this contraction : " For he 's a spirit of 
persuasion" (II. i. 235). It does not seem proba- 
ble, however, that this abbreviation can be found in 
an early play, least of all in the title. Frequent 
and bold abbreviations of common words and com- 
binations, apparently taken from colloquial usage, 
are a distinct mark of Shakespeare's latest style. 

But we are not yet through with the labor — 
whether of love or aversion — which falls to those 
who would fully consider the question of the signi- 

1 ShaJcespeares dramatische Werke, nach der Uebersetzung von 
Schlegel und Tieck, herausgegeben durch die deutsche Sh.-Ge- 
sellschaft, 2te Aufl. 1897 ; Einleitung zu Ende gut, Alles gut, vol. 
xi. p. 345, note. 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING 285 

ficance of these troublesome titles. Brae offers an 
interpretation of his own : — 

" It seems to have escaped notice on all hands that 
the mythological sense of Love's Labour would be much 
more consonant with the age in which Shakespeare 
wrote, than the sentimental sense. That is, that Love's 
Labours in the dramatic writing of that time, would be 
much more likely to be understood as the gests or ex- 
ploits of the deity Love, in the same sense as the fabled 
Labours of Hercules. 

" That such is really the intention of the title in the 
case of ' Love's Labour's Lost/ must become apparent 
to any one who will attentively read the play with that 
previous notion. He will then perceive abundant evi- 
dence, all through, that it is the mythical -exploits of the 
blind god that are alluded to : — in overcoming the ap- 
parently insurmountable difficulties opposed to him ; in 
setting at nought the vows of the king and his courtiers ; 
and in bringing to the feet of the princess and her ladies 
the very men who had forsworn all women. After scat- 
tering human resolves to the winds, and reducing to 
subjection the hearts that had presumed to set him at 
defiance, Love at length succumbs to a still more absolute 
deity than himself. Death steps in to frustrate his de- 
signs, at the very instant of fruition, and so his labour 
becomes Labour Lost. 

" The mythological allusions are unmistakeable. Biron 
exclaims, when the King enters love-stricken, l Proceed, 
sweet Cupid : thou hast thumped him with thy bird- 
bolt under the left pap ' [IV. iii. 22-4]. In another 
place, i Love ' is ' a Hercules, still climbing trees in the 
Hesperides ' [IV. iii. 340, 341], a direct reference to 
the mythological labours of Hercules ! And when the 
whole ' mess of fools ' yield themselves, rescue or no 



286 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

rescue, the King personifies Love and invokes him as 
his patron, — ' Saint Cupid, then ! and, soldiers, to the 
field!' [IV. iii. 366]. 

" Now, according to the interpretation the title of this 
play has hitherto received at the hands of Shakespeare's 
editors, the mythological sense is ignored. The love's 
labour which, according to them, is lost, is not Love's 
labour, but that of the King and his fellows, i in their 
endeavours,' as Mr. Knight explains, 'to ingratiate 
themselves with their mistresses*' But surely such an 
explanation excludes the most prominent labour of all, 
the conquest of the men themselves ! They, so far from 
being partakers in the labour, are unwilling victims, — 
each ashamed to acknowledge his defeat to his fellows. 
This was the triumph, this was the exploit, — and, being 
attributable to Love alone, it is of itself almost sufficient 
to establish the true meaning of the title." 

Mr. Brae now seeks to win from his interpre- 
tation of this title an argument for his conten- 
tion that " Much Ado " is the desired " Love's 
Labour 's Won " : — 

" In mythological language, a labour was an achieve- 
ment of great and supernatural difficulty, to be under- 
taken only by the Gods and Heroes ; from the analogy, 
then, of the assumed meaning of that word in ' Love's 
Labour 's Lost,' something of the same character must 
naturally be looked for in whatever play may have borne 
the companion title of ' Love's Labour 's Won ' ; and 
it is now to be shown that in no other available play is 
there so much of that character as in ' Much Ado about 
Nothing.' 

" In it, the same difficulty is encountered in bringing 
together sworn enemies to Love, who profess to set him 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING 287 

at defiance ; the same forced subjection of unwilling 
victims who are confidently boasting of their freedom. 

" So completely is this recognized as a labour, that 
Don Pedro, the match maker, who must meddle with 
everybody's love affairs, and fancy them his own doing, 
exclaims : — ' I will . . . undertake one of Hercules' 
labours ; which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the 
Lady Beatrice into a mountain of aff ection the one with 
the other ' [II. i. 379-83]. Here, then, in ' Love's La- 
bour 's Won ' (?), is the same literal reference to the 
Labours of Hercules as that before noted in ' Love's 
Labour 's Lost ' ! 

" But it is in the numerous allusions to the deity 
Love, and to his exploits, that the most conclusive simili- 
tude exists ; — ' Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his 
quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly ' 
[I. i. 273-4]. Beatrice, in the very opening, says of 
Benedick — ' He set up his bills here in Messina and 
challenged Cupid at the flight ; and my uncle's fool, 
reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and chal- 
lenged him at the bird-bolt' [I. i. 39-42]. Cupid's 
bird-bolt ! see the parallel phrase quoted above. Then, 
again, where Don Pedro is pluming himself upon his 
clever stratagem to lime Benedick, he exclaims : — ' If 
we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer : his glory 
shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods ' [II. i. 
400-2]. 

" But, as if in contrast to this foolish assumption, 
Hero, who plays off the same trick upon Beatrice, takes 
no part of the credit to herself : — she is one of the in- 
itiated ; she has herself felt the power of the bird-bolt 
and knows well who sent it : — ' Of this matter is little 
Cupid's crafty arrow made, that only wounds by hearsay ' 
[III. i. 21-3]. And again : — ' Some Cupid kills with 
arrows, some with traps ' [III. i. 106] . 



288 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

"One more of these allusions need only be added, 
and that principally for the sake of explaining an ex- 
pression which has been much misunderstood. In the 
[second] Scene of the third Act, Don Pedro says of 
Benedick : — ' He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow- 
string, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him ' 
[III. ii. 10-2]. Here ' hangman ' . . . plainly means 
slaughterer ! a very appropriate epithet for Cupid. . . . 

" Thus the epithet ' little hangman ' designating, as 
it does when properly explained, Love as the slaughterer 
of hearts, directly corroborates the general hypothesis, 
that ' Love's Labour,' in the titles of these two plays, 
has mythological reference to the exploits of the god." 

It will perhaps help us in estimating the plau- 
sibility of Brae's contention if we note that the 
name Cupid occurs ten times in " Love's Labour 's 
Lost," nine times in " Much Ado," eight times in 
" A Midsummer-Night's Dream," and not more 
than twice in any other one of the plays printed 
as comedies in the First Folio. None of the refer- 
ences in " A Midsummer-Night's Dream" seems 
significant. Three of them concern Cupid's lost 
labor in trying to wound the " fair vestal throned 
by the west " (II. i. 155—68). In another, " Dian's 
bud " breaks the spell that had been wrought by 
"Cupid's flower" (IV. i. 78-9). The remaining 
passages in which the name of the love-god ap- 
pears do not suggest that " A Midsummer-Night's 
Dream " is the much sought for " Love's Labour 's 
Won" (I. i. 169, 235 ; III. ii. 103, 440). 

Of the ten passages in " Love's Labour 's Lost " 
which mention the name of Cupid, three seem not 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING 289 

to be significant (I. ii. 67 ; II. i. 254 ; IV. iii. 58). 
The others follow, so far as they have not been 
already cited : — 

" Armado. . . . Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' 
club ; and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier." 

I. ii. 181-3. 

" Biron. And I, forsooth, in love ! I, that have been love's whip ; 
A very beadle to a humorous sigh ; 
A critic, nay, a night-watch constable ; 
A domineering pedant o'er the boy ; 
Than whom no mortal so magnificent ! 
This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy ; 
This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid ; 
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, 
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, 
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents, 
Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces, 
Sole imperator and great general 
Of trotting 'paritors : — O my little heart ! — 
And I to be a corporal of his field, 
And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop ! 
What, I ! I love ! I sue ! I seek a wife ! 

And I to sigh for her ! to watch for her ! 
To pray for her ! Go to ; it is a plague 
That Cupid will impose for my neglect 
Of his almighty dreadful little might." 

III. i. 175-91, 202-5. 

" Bosaline. Madam, came nothing else along with that ? 

Princess. Nothing but this ! yes, as much love in rhyme 
As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper, 
Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all, 
That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name." 

V. ii. 5-9. 

" Boyet. Prepare, madam, prepare ! 

Arm, wenches, arm ! encounters mounted are 
Against your peace : Love doth approach disguised, 
Armed in arguments ; you '11 be surprised : 



290 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

Muster your wits ; stand in your own defence ; 
Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence. 

Princess. Saint Denis to Saint Cupid ! What are they 
That charge their breath against us ? say, scout, say." 

V. ii. 81-8. 

One of the mentions of Cupid in " Much Ado " 
is non-significant (I. i. 186). One of those already 
cited, however, has even more force than Brae in- 
dicates if we note the entire context : — 

" Don Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love. 

Benedick. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my 
lord, not with love : prove that ever I lose more blood with love 
than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a 
ballad-maker's pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house 
for the sign of blind Cupid. 

Don Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou 
wilt prove a notable argument. 

Don Pedro. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in 
Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly. 

Benedick. I look for an earthquake too, then." 

I. i. 249-58, 273-5. 

Brae has certainly made out a plausible case for 
his explanation of the words " Love's Labour 's 
Lost." The interpretation which he gives is natu- 
ral and unforced. Still, the same may be said for 
the usual understanding of the title. 

Brae makes much of the similarity of Benedick 
and Beatrice in " Much Ado " to Biron and Rosa- 
line in " Love's Labour 's Lost " : — 

" So striking is the resemblance of design and treat- 
ment in both pairs, that without any view to the present 
question, they have long been spoken of as first sketch 
and finished portrait. But by the present hypothesis, 
which assumes that these two plays were designed for 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING 291 

companion pictures, under titles differing only in de- 
nouement, the judgement is at once relieved from the 
necessity of regarding them as repetitions, or of suppos- 
ing that the inexhaustible Shakespeare would recur to 
his old materials for re-working in another form." 

The last sentence is unfortunate in view of the 
fact that Shakespeare was constantly repeating 
his characters and situations in other forms. The 
amount of dramatic material in " The Winter's 
Tale " that had been used in previous plays is 
really astonishing to one who examines the comedy 
carefully with this in mind. 

" But there is also apparent design," says Brae, " in 
the contrasts, as well as in the similitudes presented by 
these two plays. In one the prevailing feature is rhyme, 
in the other prose ; in one the phraseology is obscure 
and euphuistic, in the other remarkably plain and collo- 
quial." 

In short," in the words of Mr. Sludge, the 
Medium, "a hit proves much, a miss proves more." 
Here Brae has unwittingly turned his shafts against 
himself. Perhaps nothing quite so effective has 
elsewhere been said against his hypothesis. 

Parallel passages are cited " for the purpose of 
showing that the two plays were probably written 
about the same time," but these are not numerous 
enough to have muah force. 

The ingenuity and plausibility of Brae's argu- 
ment caused Fleay to abandon the view of Cole- 
ridge, which, as already noted, he had supported in 
1874 and 1876. In 1877, he declared that Brae 



292 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

had shown that " Much Ado " " is almost certainly 
the same as ' Love's Labour 's Won.' " In 1886 he 
was less positive. In 1891 he thought "Much 
Ado" "probably a rewritten version of 'Love's 
Labour 's Won.' " 1 The additional arguments by 
which Fleay attempted in 1886 to strengthen Brae's 
view are ingenious but not valuable. However, 
the fine sarcasm with which Furness refutes one 
of these is so delicious that it cannot be said to 
have lived in vain. 2 

VII. "THE TAMING OF THE SHREW " 

The view that is now to engage our attention 
was put forward by Craik in 1857. Omitting most 
of what he says concerning a manuscript emenda- 
tion in the Collier folio, his argument runs as 
follows : — 

" May not the true ' Love's Labour 's Won ' be what 
we now call ' The Taming of the Shrew ' ? That play 
is founded upon an older one called ' The Taming of a 
Shrew ' ; it is therefore in the highest degree improbable 
that it was originally produced under its present name. 
The designation by which it is now known, in all likeli- 
hood, was only given to it after its predecessor had been 
driven from the stage, and had come to be generally 
forgotten. Have we not that which it previously bore 
indicated in one of the restorations of Mr. Collier's MS. 

1 Introduction to Shakespearian Study (London and Glasgow, 
1877), pp. 23, 25. The Life and Work of William Shakespeare 
(London, 1886), pp. 204, 205. A Biographical Chronicle of the 
English Drama, 1559-1642, 2 vols. (London, 1891), vol. ii. p. 182. 

2 Variorum edition of Much Ado, pp. xviii, xix. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 293 

annotator, who directs us, in the last line but one of the 
Second Act, instead of ' in this case of wooing ' to read 
1 in this case of winning. 9 . . . The play is, besides, full 
of other repetitions of the same key-note. Thus, in the 
second Scene of Act I., when Hortensio informs Gremio 
that he had promised Petrucio, if he would become 
suitor to Katharine, that they ' would be contributors, 
And bear his charge of wooing, whatsoe'er,' Gremio 
answers, ' And so we will, provided that he win her ' [I. 
ii. 215-7]. In the fifth Scene of Act IV., when the 
resolute Veronese has brought the shrew to a complete 
submission, Hortensio's congratulation is, 4 Petrucio, go 
thy ways ; the field is won ' [IV. v. 23]. So in the con- 
cluding scene the lady's father exclaims, i Now, fair befall 
thee, good Petrucio ! The wager thou hast won ; ' to 
which the latter replies, ' Nay, I will win my wager 
better yet ' [V. ii. Ill, 112, 116]. And his last words 
in passing from the stage, as if in pointed allusion to our 
supposed title of the piece, are — 

* 'Twas I won the wager, though you [Lucentio] hit the white; 
And, being a winner, God give you good night ! ' 

V. ii. 186, 187. 

" The title of ' Love's Labour 's Won,' it may be 
added, might also comprehend the underplot of Lucentio 
and Bianca, and even that of Hortensio and the Widow, 
though in the case of the latter it might rather be sup- 
posed to be the lady who should be deemed the winning 
party." 1 

Hertzberg tells us that Eixiil Palleske 2 and E. W. 

1 George L. Craik, The English of Shakespeare (London, 1857), 
pp. 8, 9, note. The passage is omitted from the American edi- 
tion. 

2 In the case of Palleske no reference is given, and it has been 
impossible to find at Harvard University or the Boston Public 
Library the book or article concerned. 



294 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

Sievers preceded himself in Germany in identify- 
ing " Love's Labour 's Won " with " The Taming 
of the Shrew." The argument of Sievers will be 
given later. Hertzberg points out in favor of the 
theory before us that " The Taming of the Shrew " 
is not in Meres' s list by its own name, although it 
is among the most youthful productions of Shake- 
speare ; that Petruchio has an abundance of labor 
in winning the desired result ; and that, though 
the title " Love's Labour 's Won " does not apply 
perfectly and for all the suitors, the companion 
title " Love's Labour 's Lost " is by no means an 
entirely happy description of the action of that 
comedy. 1 

Boas inclines to the view of Hertzberg, both in 
the latter's argument opposing " All 's Well " and in 
that favoring " The Taming of the Shrew," " while 
admitting that the question has not been quite 
conclusively settled." 2 

Shakespearean scholars are pretty well agreed 
that " The Taming of the Shrew " was in existence 
when Meres's list was written. However, we will 
glance for a moment at the evidence concerning 
the date of composition. It is generally accepted 
also that only the shrew story itself in this comedy 
is by Shakespeare, and that the under-plot is not his. 3 

1 ShaJcespeares dramatische WerJce, nach der Uebersetzung von 
Schlegel und Tieck. herausgegeben durch die deutsche Sh.-Ge- 
sellschaft, 2te Aufl. 1897; Einleitung zu Ende gut, Alles gut, vol. 
xi. p. 355. 

2 Shakspere and His Predecessors (New York, 1896), p. 345, n. 
8 See in this book, pp. 213, 229, 241. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 295 

The supposed allusions in the play and to the 
play by means of which attempts have been 
made to determine the date of " The Taming of 
the Shrew " are entirely inconclusive. 1 Remember- 
ing the " inveterate skepticism " of Delius concern- 
ing most of the allusions used to establish the dates 
of plays, 2 and the exposure which Furness has re- 
cently made of their untrustworthiness in the case of 
" Twelfth Night," 3 let us look for better evidence. 

The fact that the comedy called " The Taming 
of a Shrew " was published in 1594 does not help 
very directly in determining the date of our play. 
" The Shrew " and " A Shrew " (as it will be con- 
venient to call the two plays) are closely related. 
The taming story is the same in both, and there 
are also remarkable agreements in language, ex- 
tending even to insignificant phrases. The under- 
plots of the two comedies are decidedly different. 
The usual view is that Shakespeare took not only 
his main plot from " A Shrew," but also the lan- 
guage, where that is common to the two plays. But 
this view has not been proved. 

The testimony of the versification would place 
Shakespeare's part of " The Shrew " very early in 
his career as a writer. Konig 4 finds the play to have 
a smaller percentage of run-on lines (enjambements) 

1 See the writer's longer paper, " Shakespeare's Part in ' The 
Taming of the Shrew,' " Publications of Modern Language Asso- 
ciation, vol. v. pp. 211-3. 

2 Preface to the Leopold Shakspere, London. 

3 Preface to Variorum edition of Twelfth Night (Philadelphia, 
1901), pp. vii-xi. 

4 Der Vers in Shaksperes Dramen (Strassburg, 1888), p. 133. 



296 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

than any other. Moreover, in those parts of the 
play which are accepted as Shakespeare's, the run-on 
lines are less numerous than elsewhere. Of all the 
so-called metrical tests, this one of the frequency 
of run-on lines, " the stopt-line test," seems to be 
the most important. This importance is due both 
to its organic character, its close relation to the 
changing thought and style of the poet, and also to 
the large number of lines concerned in determining 
the percentage for each play. 

The small amount of rhyme in Shakespeare's 
part of " The Shrew " 1 speaks against giving to the 
play so early a date as " the stopt-line test " would 
indicate ; but the metrical evidence as a whole is 
plainly in favor of a date before 1598. The links 
which Furnivall points out between " The Shrew " 
and the other dramas concern plays that are in 
Meres's list, especially " The Comedy of Errors." 2 
The accepted opinion that " The Shrew " was in 
existence when Meres's book was written is there- 
fore well founded. 

A struggle for supremacy between a wife and 
husband was a favorite theme in mediaeval story. 
The Wife of Bath and the Merchant's Wife, in 
Chaucer, are examples of assertive shrews. The 
half-morality " Tom Tyler and His Wife," which 
gives an amusing account of an attempt to tame 
a shrew, was probably printed in 157 8. 3 

1 Publications of Modern Language Association, vol. v. pp. 269, 
270. 

2 Intro, to Leopold Shakspere, p. xliv. 

8 Reprinted by F. E. Schellhig from the 2d ed., 1661, in the 
Publications of Modern Language Association, vol. xv. pp. 253-89. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 297 

" The Taming of the Shrew " is usually said to 
have appeared in print for the first time in the Folio 
of 1623. It was also printed in quarto form in 
1631. Some years ago Mr. Quaritch, the London 
bookseller, offered for sale a quarto copy of this 
play which did not contain the leaf bearing the 
date, but which he believed to have been printed 
before the First Folio. 1 " The Taming of a Shrew " 
was printed in 1594, 1596, and 1607. Since the 
taming story is substantially the same in both plays, 
all of these impressions may be reckoned together 
as showing the popularity of this story. This play 
was the only comedy of Shakespeare to call out a 
dramatic retort after his death ; and the existence 
of this companion piece, Fletcher's " The Woman's 
Prize, or, The Tamer Tamed," of itself makes it 
certain that our play had been a favorite. In 1633 
Shakespeare's comedy was performed at court on 
the night of November 26, and Fletcher's on No- 
vember 28. Fletcher's piece seems to have been 
generally called by its second name, " The Tamer 
Tamed," undoubtedly, as Weber observes, in order 
" to approximate the title to that of Shakespeare's 
play." 2 "The Taming of the Shrew" was revived 
at the Restoration. The Dutch version of 1654 
is "the earliest extant translation of any Shake- 
spearean play." 3 In Germany this comedy has been 

1 Bankside Shakespeare, vol. ii. (New York, 1888), p. 4. 

2 The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, ed. by A. Dyce (Boston, 
1854), vol. ii. p. 178. 

3 " De dolle Bruyloft " is the title. See article by J. Bolte, 
Jahrbuch of the German Shakespeare Society, vol. xxvi. pp. 78, 79. 



298 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

many times refashioned. Whatever may have been 
the form of the play spoken of in 1658 as " Die 
wunderbare Heurath Petruvio, mit der bosen Catha- 
rine," 1 an adaptation of Shakespeare's play called 
" Kunst iiber alle Kiinste, ein bos Weib gut zu 
machen," appeared in 1672, and is " the earliest 
impression of a German version of an entire Shake- 
spearean piece." 2 Later adaptations are: "Chris- 
tian Weise's 4 Die biise Katharina,' 1705 ; Schink's 
'Diebezahmte Wiederbellerin,' 1781, and Hol- 
bein's 'Liebe kann Alles,' 1822; finally the now 
current version by Deinhardstein." 3 

In Germany at the present day this comedy en- 
joys a surpassing popularity. From the annual 
statistics given in the " Jahrbiicher " of the German 
Shakespeare Society we learn that, during the four 
years 1885-8, " The Taming of the Shrew" was 
played 297 times in the usual version, and 153 times 
in the Holbein adaptation, 4 Liebe kann Alles,' a total 
of 450 times. No other play of Shakespeare was 
so popular. " Othello " and " Hamlet " come next 
with 414 and 347 performances in the same period. 
In 1895 " Othello " was presented 114 times and 
" The Taming of the Shrew " 104 times, out of a 
total of 774 Shakespearean performances. In the 
same year " Liebe kann Alles " was acted " about 
30 times." In 1900, out of a total of 713 perform- 

1 Introduction to Kohler's edition of Kunst iiber alle Kiinste, etc. 
(Berlin, 1864), p. ix. 

2 Cohn, Shakespeare in Germany (London, 1865), p. cxxiv. 

8 Herford, Eversley Shakespeare, vol. ii. (London, 1899), pp. 
11, 12. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 299 

ances for all the plays of Shakespeare, " Othello " 
was acted 96 times ; " Hamlet" and " Romeo and 
Juliet," each 83 times; " The Taming of the Shrew," 
78 times. No account was kept of the presentation 
of " Liebe kann Alles." 

In the United States "The Taming of the 
Shrew " has always enjoyed a good degree of public 
favor, but not the abounding measure bestowed 
upon it in Germany. 

Various comedies of the age of Elizabeth and 
James besides those already mentioned dealwith 
the general topic of shrewish and unmanageable 
wives ; and a number of more modern plays have 
either been adapted from " The Taming of the 
Shrew " or suggested by it. 1 

The accepted early date of " The Taming of the 
Shrew," and its extraordinary and continuous pop- 
ularity, force us to ask the question : How could 
such a play be omitted from Meres's list? The 
only purpose of the list was to establish the claim 
that Shakespeare was " most excellent in both 
kinds [tragedy and comedy] for the stage." How 
could Meres omit this play with its mastery of 
comic technique ? — this play which goes off with 
such captivating vigor on the stage, which has such 
an abundance of broad and even farcical comedy 
for the crowd, and also suggestions of deeper truth 
for the thoughtful ? " No other play of Shake- 
speare," says Herford, " has come home like 4 The 

1 See Talcott Williams's "Bibliography of 'The Taming of 
the Shrew,' " Shakespearian^ vol. v. pp. 445-56, 497-513. 



300 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

Taming of the Shrew ' to the business and bosoms 
of average men and husbands." 1 Must we believe 
that this comedy was omitted by Meres ? 

Herford thinks that Meres's failure to include 
" The Shrew " does not show that the comedy was 
not in existence. It may have been omitted be- 
cause it was " so largely not Shakespeare's." Von 
Westenholz takes the same line of explanation 
when he points out that, because of the great simi- 
larity " between ' A Shrew ' and ' The Shrew,' it 
was not appropriate for Meres to cite the latter 
play as a proof of Shakespeare's preeminence as a 
dramatist, and that ' Henry VI.,' which was also 
omitted, presented a similar difficulty." 2 

The agreements already noted between the lan- 
guage of " A Shrew " and " The Shrew " have a 
bearing upon this discussion. Are we to believe 
that these similarities are due to the fact that 
Shakespeare borrows freely from the already ex- 
isting play, " A Shrew " ? If so, it is just the 
most successful and the most intensely Shake- 
spearean parts of " The Shrew " which are taken 
from the other play; and this borrowing marks 
not only the plot but also the language. The 
especial difficulty concerns the language ; for it 
seems absurd to think of Shakespeare as follow- 
ing another writer in the minute and unimportant 
phrases that are common to the two plays. 3 There 

1 Eversley Shakespeare, vol. ii. p. 10. 

2 Englische Studien, vol. xxxii. p. 413. 
8 See pp. 210-2. of this book. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 301 

is no difficulty really like this in all Shakespearean 
study. " King John " follows very closely the 
action and general plan of the older play, "The 
Troublesome Reign of King John," but not the 
language. Parts II. and III. of " Henry VI." 
freely appropriate passages from the two older 
plays on which they are based ; but many Shake- 
spearean scholars believe that in doing this the 
dramatist, on the whole, only took again what he 
had himself contributed to the earlier plays. But 
the minute verbal agreements between " The 
Shrew" and " A Shrew" have been generally ex- 
plained by supposing that Shakespeare appropri- 
ated freely the language of another, even unimpor- 
tant bits of prose. Every student of Shakespeare 
knows how easily he transformed the materials 
which he took for his own use ; and it is hard to 
think of him as appropriating the ordinary prose 
phrases of another in this wholesale fashion. The 
true explanation may well be that in some way 
another man had previously borrowed the language 
of Shakespeare, and that in "The Shrew" the 
dramatist only reclaims his own. 

More than twenty years ago, Professor Bern- 
hard ten Brink expressed the opinion that " The 
Shrew " is the revision of a youthful work of 
Shakespeare, and that "A Shrew" was based 
directly on this youthful piece. This would make 
the writer of " A Shrew," and not Shakespeare, 
the borrower. Ten Brink's words are, in transla- 
tion : — 



302 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

" I consider ' The Taming of a Shrew ' neither a 
youthful production of Shakespeare, nor the source used 
by him, nor, finally, a recasting of Shakespeare's com- 
edy as it is found in the Folio. According to my view, 
'The Taming of a Shrew' and the Folio drama of 
almost the same name go back to a common source. 
This original was a youthful production of Shakespeare, 
which differed from the later version especially in the 
fact that the element derived from 6 The Supposes ' was 
still wanting to its simpler intrigue. Lack of space pre- 
vents the proving of this hypothesis. For the present 
suffice it to say that it affords a compromise between 
the older views, in a way reconciles them, and is not 
open to the objections which have been raised against 
each of them." * 

If we assume for the moment that the hypothe- 
sis of ten Brink is true, it is natural to suggest 
that this youthful work of Shakespeare bore the 
name of " Love's Labour 's Won," that then an 
unauthorized adaptation of this early piece became 
popular under the name " The Taming of a 
Shrew," and that later Shakespeare's play was 
revised to meet this competition and received its 
present title. This new name, " The Taming of 
the Shrew," involved, we may suppose, a claim to 
the rightful ownership of the common material. 

Ten Brink's hypothesis is highly speculative, 
and can probably never be really proved. Yet it 
would explain many difficulties ; and among these 
the following may be mentioned : — 

1 " Ueber den«6ommernachtstraum, " Jahrbuch of the German 
Shakespeare Society, vol. xiii. p. 94. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 303 

1. The agreements between the language of 
" The Shrew " and « A Shrew." 

2. The remarkable borrowings from Marlowe 
and imitations of him which abound in " A Shrew." 1 
The borrower takes freely from both the great 
dramatists. 

3. The early date given to Shakespeare's part 
of " The Shrew " by the stopt-line test. 

4. The remarkable excellence of " A Shrew," its 
author being called by Swinburne "of all the pre- 
Shakespeareans incomparably the truest, the rich- 
est, the most powerful and original humorist." 2 

5. The view of Pope, Capell, and Frey, the Bank- 
side editor, that Shakespeare wrote " A Shrew." 

6. The use made of " The Supposes," a play 
translated by Gascoigne from the Italian of Ariosto, 
and played in 1566. As the present writer has 
shown elsewhere, 3 the under-plot of " The Shrew " 
is decidedly superior to that of " A Shrew," and 
appropriates much more material from " The Sup- 
poses." It is very unlikely that Shakespeare's play 
in its present form was before the writer of " A 
Shrew." Ten Brink and Herford 4 seem to be in 
error in thinking that " A Shrew " takes nothing 
from " The Supposes." 

1 Publications of Modern Language Association, vol. v. pp. 
239-47. 

2 Cited by Bullen, The Works of Marlowe (Boston, 1885), vol. 
i. p. lxxvi. 

3 Publications of Modern Language Association, vol. v. pp. 215- 
27. 

4 Eversley Shakespeare, vol. ii. pp. 6, 7. 



304 LOVE'S LABOUR 'S WON 

7. If the identification of " Love's Labour 's 
"Won " with " The Shrew " be added to the sug- 
gestion of ten Brink, we see a reason for the giving 
up of the title " Love's Labour 's Won," and we 
also get an explanation of the remarkable agreement 
between the titles of " A Shrew " and " The 
Shrew." If " Love's Labour 's Won " was an earlier 
name for " The Taming of the Shrew," the new title 
may well express the claim of the comedy to be the 
authoritative version of the shrew story. This theory 
concerning " Love's Labour 's Won " offers, there- 
fore, a definite reason for the dropping of that title. 
The strange similarity in the titles of " The Taming 
of a Shrew " and " The Taming of the Shrew " 
receives thus a natural explanation, and becomes 
significant. 

Without trying to insist, then, upon all of the 
points in the hypothesis of ten Brink, we may sup- 
pose that " Love's Labour 's Won " became at a 
later day " The Taming of the Shrew," whether or 
not a change in the form of the play accompanied 
this change of name. 

Herford objects to the suggestion that "The 
Taming of the Shrew " can be connected with the 
title " Love's Labour 's Won," because in this 
comedy " it is marital authority that labours and 
wins, not love." 1 It must be admitted that this 
point is a strong one ; yet there are certain consid- 
erations which offset it in good measure. 

First, it is not necessary to believe that Petru- 

1 Intro, to All 's Well, Eversley Shakespeare, vol. iii. p. 114. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 305 

chio carries through his taming without any real 
affection for his Kate. The action begins unfor- 
tunately with a mercenary and emphatic choice of 
Katharine by Petruchio before he has seen her ; 
at this point " A Shrew " is the better play. Still, 
we are undoubtedly intended to see that Kate needs 
to be tamed for her own permanent happiness ; 
and it is only fair and natural to believe that 
below the pretense of Petruchio, " That all is done 
in reverend care of her " (IV. i. 217), lies the 
deeper fact that a real affection is winning a wise 
victory. 

It is quite possible, also, that the title " Love's 
Labour 's Won " was intended to have an ironical, a 
half-humorous application. The dramatist's thought 
may have been : " This is the kind of love that 
wins in this world, love that is fertile and daring 
in expedients, love that is combined with an ener- 
getic assertion of mastership." It is noticeable that 
the name of Holbein's adaptation of " The Shrew," 
" Liebe kann Alles," comes very close in meaning 
to the title " Love's Labour 's Won." 1 

Again, it is not at all necessary, in order to 
identify the two comedies, that " Love's Labour 's 
Won " should be a good title for " The Shrew." 
There is some reason to think that "Love's La- 
bour 's Won " was a somewhat inappropriate name 
for the play that bore it. The companion title, 
" Love's Labour 's Lost," is a poor designation for 

1 The writer regrets that he has no detailed information about 
Liebe kann Alles. 



306 LOVE'S LABOUR 9 S WON 

that comedy ; and if the dramatist abandoned the 
title " Love's Labour 's Won," as is generally sup- 
posed, it too was probably an unsatisfactory name. 
The change of title may have come about both be- 
cause the old designation, " Love's Labour 's Won," 
was unsuitable, and because the new one, " The 
Taming of the Shrew," asserted Shakespeare's 
rightful ownership of this dramatic material. If 
the play was revised at the time it received the new 
name, then the change of title was especially nat- 
ural and appropriate. 

We have already noted those passages in " The 
Shrew" which seem to Craik to refer distinctly to 
its supposed earlier title. The expressions con- 
cerned, while not at all conclusive, certainly fit well 
with his interpretation. 

The excellence of the Cade scenes in "II. Henry 
VI." makes it probable that Shakespeare wrote 
admirable comedy of a vigorous type very early in 
his career. 

It must be frankly admitted that the correspond- 
ences and agreements in dramatic details which we 
fairly expect to find between two plays with such 
parallel titles, do not exist between "Love's La- 
bour 's Lost " and our proposed " Love's Labour 's 
Won," " The Shrew." The claims of » Much Ado 
about Nothing " and " A Midsummer-Night's 
Dream " are much better supported at this point. 
However, the tone of the two plays is distinctly 
similar. There is in each about the same mixture 
of jest and earnest. Also, the fundamental thought, 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 307 

the theme, in each play may be said to be a humor- 
ous presentation of what is normal and what ab- 
normal in the relations between the sexes, con- 
sidered apart from any question of vice. From this 
point of view these two plays may be said to be a 
group by themselves among the dramas of Shake- 
speare. 

If we subdivide the fourteen plays that are printed 
in the First Folio as comedies, perhaps a classifica- 
tion that is as significant as any is that which sepa- 
rates them into what may be called tragi-comedies, 
romantic comedies, and pure comedies. " The Mer- 
chant of Venice " and " Measure for Measure " 
fall together as tragi-comedies, plays in which the 
action, after threatening for a time to end fatally, 
reaches a happy conclusion. After these come the 
romantic comedies, those which have a principal ac- 
tion that is in the main dignified and earnest, while 
the humorous element is especially prominent in 
connection with subordinate characters, or even in a 
separate subordinate action. This is Shakespeare's 
favorite type of comedy, and at least eight of our 
fourteen plays belong most naturally in this class. 
If we apply the term pure comedies to plays in 
which the central action is filled with humor, the 
four remaining plays will fall here. These are : 
"Love's Labour's Lost," "The Taming of the 
Shrew," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," and 
" The Comedy of Errors." It may be best to make 
a fourth class for " The Comedy of Errors," and 
call it a farce. This would be both because the 



308 LOVE'S LABOUR 'S WON 

play puts impossibilities in the very foreground in 
order to excite laughter, and because its comedy of 
misunderstandings is almost entirely independent 
of the characters of those concerned, and often be- 
comes the mere boisterous fun of unexpected beat- 
ing or scolding. If we thus set this play by itself, 
three dramas remain in our class of pure comedies. 
One of these, " The Merry Wives," is generally be- 
lieved not to have been in existence at the time 
when Meres wrote ; though some . think otherwise. 
The story that this play was written at the com- 
mand of Queen Elizabeth is given both by Dennis 
and Rowe at the beginning of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. It may well go back to contemporary author- 
ity, and has been widely accepted. Rowe says : 
" She [Elizabeth] was so well pleas'd with that 
admirable character of Falstaff in the two parts 
of Henry the Fourth, that she commanded him 
[Shakespeare] to continue it for one play more, and 
to shew him in love. This is said to be the occasion 
of his writing the Merry Wives of Windsor." 2 
If we do not question this account, then we have in 
" Love's Labour 's Lost " and " The Taming of the 
Shrew " the only pure comedies which Shakespeare 
wrote of his own accord, and probably the only 
ones that were in existence when Meres's list was 
penned. 

A very recent treatise in English upon the theory 
of the drama is that by Miss Woodbridge. She 

1 Cited in Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines, etc., 10th ed. (London, 
1898), vol. ii. p. 74. 



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 309 

makes much of the division of comedy into judicial, 
or satiric comedy, on the one hand, and non-judicial, 
or sympathetic comedy, on the other. 1 This distinc- 
tion applies properly only to the comic elements in 
the plays. Jonson, as a comedian, is judicial, 
satiric, reformatory ; Shakespeare is prevailingly 
non-judicial, sympathetic, genial. What fools we 
mortals be ! This thought may be taken as the 
motto for Shakespeare's work as a humorous drama- 
tist. Among the fourteen " comedies " of the First 
Folio, the following may be said to show in their 
humorous portions some approach to the judicial, 
satiric spirit : " Love's Labour 's Lost," " The 
Taming of the Shrew," "The Merry Wives," 
"All's Well" (the story of ParoUes), "Twelfth 
Night" (the story of Malvolio), and "The Tem- 
pest " (the conspiracy of Caliban, Stephano, and 
Trinculo). Of these six plays, the first two were 
almost certainly in existence when Meres wrote, 
and probably only the first two. In " Love's La- 
bour 's Lost " and " The Shrew," also, the satire is 
more insistent and more sharply didactic than in 
the other cases. Here once more we find " Love's 
Labour's Lost" and "The Shrew" associated. 

The above argument had been completed in the 
form given before the writer was able to get access 
to the work of E. W. Sievers, in which, in 1866, 
he advocated the identification of " The Taming 
of the Shrew " and " Love's Labour 's Won." His 

1 The Drama, Its Law, and Its Technique (Boston, 1898), 
pp. 62-6, 162-74. 



310 LOVE'S LABOUR >S WON 

words supplement and enforce in a most effective 
way some things which have already been said : — 

" We come now to two comedies of the poet which 
arise from a radically different tendency of his intellec- 
tual life, ' Love's Labour 's Lost ' and ' The Taming of 
the Shrew.' In these two pieces Shakespearean comedy 
approaches what is usually understood by the term com- 
edy ; in fact, it is only single idiosyncrasies and weak- 
nesses of mankind which the poet here scourges. Man, 
as he appears before us in these plays, is no longer the 
product of the factors of his own nature, working with 
the force of necessity, but is a free being ; the poet seeks 
him in the realm of his freedom, and the interest that 
moves the writer is his attempt to mark* out the first and 
most general boundaries of this freedom, and to show 
man the way thereto. The poet appears in these pieces, 
therefore, in the capacity of the pedagogue, the teacher 
and mentor of mankind, and, full as they are of the most 
genial ebullitions, a deep ethical seriousness is ever in the 
background ; yes, in these two pieces, this seriousness at 
the close even suppresses the mood of innocent mirth, 
and thereby lifts the plays above the level of the ordi- 
nary comedy. However, we have wished here only to 
point out their general character, not the aesthetic value 
to which they might lay claim. In the latter respect, 
6 The Taming of the Shrew ' ranks far below all other 
works of the poet, and can interest the modern man 
only because of its almost extravagant display of a wit 
that is somewhat coarse, to be sure, but none the less 
brilliant. 

" What then is more natural than to settle upon ' The 
Taming of the Shrew ' [as the missing ' Love's Labour 's 
Won'], especially since Meres leaves just this piece 



CONCLUSION 311 

unmentioned in his list of Shakespearean dramas ? The 
fact that it was composed at almost the same time as 
1 Love's Labour 's Lost ' . . . gives to this view addi- 
tional support." * 

CONCLUSION 

If we recur to the various criteria suggested in 
our introduction for testing the claim of any par- 
ticular comedy of Shakespeare to be accepted as 
"Love's Labour 's Won " under another name, it 
is clear that no one of the plays proposed satisfies 
them all in any convincing fashion. No one who 
has followed the foregoing discussion will wonder, 
therefore, that some scholars consider this problem 
to be insoluble. Dowden represented the opinion 
of many when he said hesitatingly : " ' Love's La- 
bour 's Won ' . . . may be a lost play of Shake- 
speare, or possibly, as has been conjectured, ' All 's 
Well that Ends Well ' in an earlier form may have 
borne this title." 2 Wendell goes farther still, and 
puts the plain truth in a plain way when he says : 
" The question can never be definitely settled." 3 
Unless some new evidence shall be discovered, this 
statement is just. 

In trying to estimate briefly the comparative 
claims of the various views that have now been pre- 
sented, it is extremely difficult to measure the force 

1 Translated from William Shakespeare, Sein Leben und Dichten, 
E. W. Sievers (Gotha, 1866), vol. i. pp. 329-31. 

2 Introduction to Shakespeare (London and New York, n. d.), 
p. 30. 

William Shakspere (New York, 1S94), p. 246. 



312 LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON 

which should be given to the agreement between 
the order of the comedies as named by Meres and 
that in the First Folio. This coincidence was pointed 
out at the close of the discussion of " A Midsum- 
mer-Night's Dream." 1 If we look upon the coin- 
cidence in question as having great significance, 
then we shall be almost compelled to accept one 
of the first three views that have been presented ; 
and among these the first one, which holds that 
" Love's Labour 's Won " has disappeared, seems to 
be decidedly the most probable. 

Since, however, it is always hazardous to judge 
Shakespearean questions on the evidence of cryp- 
tograms and mystic coincidences, in the few words 
which remain, this strange agreement will be dis- 
regarded. 

Of the four views which hold that the play has 
come down to us under another name, the favorite 
theory, that which connects "Love's Labour 's Won" 
with " All 's Well," seems decidedly improbable, 
because of the striking unlikeness of " All 's Well " 
in tone and spirit to " Love's Labour 's Lost," the 
companion play. In spite of the considerations in 
favor of "A Midsummer-Night's Dream," which 
von Westenholz has ably presented, the fundamen- 
tal difficulty of supposing that Meres names only 
five comedies in his list makes that view improb- 
able. On the whole, if we are to find " Love's La- 
bour 's Won " among the plays that we now possess, 

1 See in this article, pp. 267-8. 



CONCLUSION 313 

the choice appears to lie between " Much Ado about 
Nothing " and " The Taming of the Shrew." The 
considerations in favor of " The Taming of the 
Shrew " are strong, and the attempt has here been 
made to present them with some fullness. 



ENGLISH SUKNAMES 



ENGLISH SURNAMES 1 

What 's in a name ? As was remarked by a 
schoolboy who was ambitiously attempting to quote 
Shakespeare, " A nose by any other name would 
smell as much." There is a great deal to interest 
one, however, in names, even in those which are 
apparently the most arbitrary and meaningless of 
all, surnames. 

Two points in connection with surnames have 
been of especial interest to the present writer : 
first, the record of former stages of civilization that 
is preserved for us in our surnames taken from oc- 
cupations ; and second, the illustrations of the laws 
of sound-change in the English language which are 
offered us by many surnames whose original forms 
are known. Perhaps no class of words show the 
phonetic laws of our language more plainly than do 
surnames. These names early and easily become 
mere names, having for their users no inherent 
meaning. Indeed, surnames originate by disregard- 
ing the meaning of some personal name. When a 
name given to a father in baptism as his personal 
name, or given to him by common consent as a 
descriptive designation, is applied to his children 

1 Reprinted from The Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy 
of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, vol. x. (1894-5). 



318 ENGLISH SURNAMES 

and his children's children without reference to its 
original meaning, the name has become a surname. 
All surnames originate in this way. When a man 
who was originally called Robert' s-son because the 
personal name of his father was Robert, has a child 
born to him to whom the name Robertson is given 
in disregard of the fact that its father's personal 
name is not Robert, then the name has become a 
surname. Because surnames have ceased to have 
any inherent meaning, their phonetic development 
has been very largely free from those disturbing 
influences of analogy which have often affected the 
ordinary words of the language. Later we shall 
note some illustrations of this point. 

The first characters in Bible history — to begin 
at the beginning — have each a single name, 
Adam, Seth, Enoch. As the earth became more 
fully populated, individuals of the same name came 
to be distinguished from one another by additional 
names. These second names were personal and 
descriptive ; they were not proper surnames. Joshua 
the son of Nun, Simon Barjonas, afterward called 
Simon Peter, Simon of Cyrene, and " Simon called 
Zelotes," are instances of these additional, personal 
names. 

The well-known Roman system of naming was 
very elaborate. Let us put down a dot upon our 
sheet, and number it 1 ; around this dot as a centre 
let us draw first a smaller circle, numbered 3 ; and 
then a larger circle, numbered 2. The resulting 
figure will be a good symbol of the Roman system 




ENGLISH SURNAMES 319 

of personal nomenclature. The person whom we 
call Cicero had for his full 
name Marcus Tullius Cicero. 
He was of the family of 
Cicero; this family was a 
division of the Tullian stock, 
or clan; the personal name 
of the great orator was Mar- 
cus. We must call him, 
for short, either Tully or 
Cicero ; since there were many famous men named 
Marcus. 

No surnames existed in Great Britain previous 
to the Norman Conquest. The second-names that 
are found before the Conquest are purely personal 
nicknames. No better examples of these can be 
found than those given in the table of the Eng- 
lish kings : Harold Harefoot, Alfred the Great, 
Ethelred the Unready (slacking in good coun- 
sel), Edward the Confessor, Edmund Ironside. 

The Normans brought the use of surnames into 
England. The fashion was a new one in Normandy 
itself ; and no surnames in the Teutonic nations 
were in use much before 1066. The Normans were 
proud of owning much land, and took their sur- 
names from their large estates in Normandy or their 
new possessions in England. Bruce, Percy, Mont- 
gomery, and Montmorice are Norman place-names. 
The French mont, mountain, is seen in two of 
these. The use of surnames was at first confined 
to the nobility. The practice did not become general 



320 ENGLISH SURNAMES 

among the common people of England until the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 

There are four great classes of surnames : first, 
place-names ; second, those derived from the Chris- 
tian or baptismal name of the father, or, in some 
cases, from that of the mother ; third, surnames 
derived from occupation, rank, or official position ; 
fourth, those which were originally nicknames. 
Rev. C. W. Bardsley gives the result of a careful 
analysis of all the names in the London Directory 
which begin with A, B, C, D, or E. 1 The total 
number of names examined was over 30,000. His 
figures are here changed into percentages. 

Surnames originally place-names . . 37.5 per cent. 



Derived from baptismal names 
From rank, office, or occupation 
Originally nicknames . . 
Foreign and doubtful . . . 



27. per cent. 
14.5 per cent. 
10.2 per cent. 
10.8 per cent. 



100. 



In another work Mr. Bardsley says : " In Eng- 
land our local surnames are two-fifths of the whole. 
In France patronymic [baptismal] surnames are 
almost two-fifths of the whole." 

Let us consider briefly each of the four great 
classes of surnames. 

PLACE-NAMES 

Names beginning with At come from a preposi- 
tional phrase ; as, At (the) well, At (the) wood, 
Atwater, Atterbury, etc. Nash is from atten-ash, 
1 English Surnames, 3d ed. 



PLACE-NAMES 321 

i. e. at the ash. Local names of French origin 
often begin with Dela-, Del-, or Du- ; as in Dela- 
mere, Delisle, Dupont. Van and Von are Dutch 
and German prefixes of place. Buren in Holland, 
for example, gives the name Van Buren. Wood, 
Shaw, Holt, Hurst (all having much the same mean- 
ing), Thwaite, Thorp(e), Den, Comb, Gate(s), 
Down(s), Croft, and Clough, are all local designa- 
tions of known meaning. Many of them are used 
much more frequently as parts of compound words 
than as independent names ; as in Bradshaw, Hen- 
shaw, Lyndhurst, Denman. An old but inaccurate 
proverb says : — 

" In ford, in ham, in ley and ton, 
The most of English surnames run." 

All such names are place-names. The independ- 
ent, accented words home and town go back to 
the same words as do the unaccented suffixes -ham 
and -ton. Lee (a shelter) and lea (a pasture) ex- 
plain -ley as a suffix, and also the names Leigh, 
Lee, Lea, etc. Lea is also a Celtic river-name : we 
have one River Lea at London ; another flows into 
Cork Harbor. Hence Lee as a place-name may 
have three separate sources. The names of small 
towns are more apt to furnish place-names than 
those of large cities like London. Such names 
were more distinctive, and the movement of popu- 
lation was toward the cities. We see the English 
counties in such names as Kent, Norfolk, Lincoln. 

The syllable -ing was the Anglo-Saxon patro- 



322 ENGLISH SURNAMES 

nymic suffix, meaning son of and then descendant 
of. " A whole clan or tribe," says Isaac Taylor, 
" claiming to be descended from a real or mythic 
progenitor, or a body of adventurers attaching 
themselves to the standard of some chief, were thus 
distinguished by a common patronymic or clan 
name." 1 The Anglo-Saxons seem to have settled in 
England by families; and these clan-names gave 
rise to place-names, such as Barking, Dorking, Has- 
tings, Kensington, Wellington, and Banningham. 
More than one tenth of the towns and villages 
of England contain this syllable in their names. 
These places have in turn produced surnames. The 
clan-names of the Scotch have passed into sur- 
names directly, without first becoming place-names. 

SURNAMES FROM BAPTISMAL NAMES 

The custom of giving to a child the Christian 
name of the father with the w T ord -son or -daughter 
added thereto, as a personal, descriptive second- 
name, has been a favorite one in Scandinavian 
countries. This custom was recently observed in 
the Shetland Islands, where the inhabitants are of 
Norwegian blood ; and it may still be in force there. 
The names John Magnus'-son and Magnus John- 
son, for example, marked successive generations in 
Shetland. A sister of Magnus Johnson, if named 
Mary, would be known as " Mary, John's-daugh- 
ter." Such a fluctuation as this marked the first 

1 Words and Places, p. 83. 



SURNAMES FROM BAPTISMAL NAMES 323 

use of patronymic names in -son in England and 
Scotland. For example, Richard Johnson, son of 
John Richardson, is named in an English docu- 
ment of 1402. The possessive (')s has the same 
meaning as -so^, as in Williams. 

I cite a passage from a standard work concern- 
ing the use of such names at the present time in 
Norway and Sweden : — 

" I alighted at a farm called Husum [in southwestern 
Norway], and was welcomed by old Roar Halvorsen and 
his family, which consisted of Roar Roar sen, his eldest 
son, Haagen, Iver, Halvor, and Pehr, and two daugh- 
ters, Sonneva and Sigrid. The way of keeping family 
names is very peculiar among the bonder [farmers] 
of Norway and Sweden. For instance, the head of the 
family of Husum is Roar Halvorsen (Roar, the son of 
Halvor) ; the eldest son, as we have seen, is called Roar 
Roarsen ; and all the other children, whatever the first 
names may be, have added the name of Roarsen or 
Roar's datter ; then the eldest grandson's name goes 
back to that of the grandfather, and by this method the 
family name is preserved for generations." 1 

This method of naming has not failed to reach 
the United States. There are many Scandinavians 
in the United States whose last names are not pro- 
per surnames, or at least were not given to them 
as such. For example, Mr. Holver Thompson, a 
Norwegian, the son of Thomas Holver son, died at 
Doylestown, Wis., in 1891. 

By a patronymic surname is meant the personal 

1 Du Chaillu, Land of the Midnight Sun, 1881, vol. i. p. 391. 



324 ENGLISH SURNAMES 

name of the father used, either alone or with some 
prefix or suffix, as the surname of a son and then 
of the descendants of that son. A large number of 
the most common surnames that we have are of this 
class, such as Jones (John's), Davi(d)s, William- 
son, Johnson, etc. Keyes comes from Caius. The 
occasional spelling Kyes marks an attempt to pre- 
vent the name from being pronounced improperly 
on the pattern of the word hey. 

It would be useless for me to mention one in a 
hundred of the common appellations of this class ; 
but a few facts firmly grasped will enable any one 
to understand a vast number of names which will 
be left unnoticed. 

The Scotch and Irish prefixes Mc- and Mac- ; 
Ap-, a Welsh prefix ; and Fitz-, a Norman one ; 
all mean son of. The Anglo-Saxon patronymic 
suffix -ing has already been mentioned. The Irish 
O' is said to mean properly grandson of, as in 
O'Brien, grandson of Brien. The O' represents a 
Celtic word, not the English of. Perhaps the pre- 
sence of the Welsh prefix Ap- explains as large 
a number of otherwise inexplicably disguised sur- 
names as any other single fact. The names Parry 
and Barry (from Ap-Harry), Perry (Ap-Henry), 
Bowen (Ap-Owen), Pritchard (ApJRichard), Be- 
van (Ap-Evan), Bethel (Ap-Ithel), Powell (Ap- 
Howell), suggest the way in which many more 
words are explained. The present professor of 
Celtic at Oxford University is named Rhys. This 
name is said to mean rushing, impetuous (compare 



SURNAMES FROM BAPTISMAL NAMES 325 

English Swift) ; it explains our Reese, Breese 
(from Ap-Rhys), and many similar forms. The 
same name taken into English before our long i 
took its modern diphthongal sound (i. e. before the 
fifteenth century), explains Rice, Price, Brice, 
Bryce, etc. The royal name of Tudor is a Welsh 
form of Theodore. 

The Old-English (Anglo-Saxon) personal names 
were abandoned for the most part at the time of 
the Norman Conquest ; Edward and Edmund were 
perhaps the most common ones that remained. 
Norman personal names, including many names 
of saints from the church calendar, now came into 
use. Hence, these are the main source of our 
patronymic surnames. 

After the Norman Conquest the fashion of mak- 
ing pet-names out of common personal names be- 
came universal. We are all familiar with this 
tendency to-day ; but nothing that we now know 
can give us any idea of the vast number of pet- 
forms which at that time were made from well- 
known personal names, or of the extent to which 
they were used. The diminutive and affectionate 
suffixes -ie or -y (still in use), -kin, -cock, -ot or 
-et, -on, -en or -in, were in constant use, and help 
us to unriddle many a strange-looking surname. 
Wills, Willy, Willis, Wilson, Wil(lia)mot, WiUot, 
Willet(s), Wilkins, Wilkes, Wilkinson, Wilcox 
(-cocks), Wilcoxson, are all names which go back 
to different pet-forms of the name William. Hew- 
ett (Hugh), Collins (Col, from Nicholas), and 



326 ENGLISH SURNAMES 

Simpkins (Sim, from Simeon) are as plain as they 
are common. 

The fashion of making rhyming pet-forms will 
explain many more names. Rob, Bob, Hob, and 
Dob are derived in this way from Robert. Hence 
such names as Bobson, Hobbs, Hobson, Hopkins, 
Dobbs, etc., are as clear as Roberts and Robinson ; 
and we must add to our list of common names 
derived from William, — Bill, Bills, Billson, Gil- 
son, etc. Ralph has many names connected with it 
through pet-forms that are not at first clear, such 
as Rawson, Rawlin(g)(s), Randall, Rollins, etc. ; 
and Richard has some names that no one would 
at first thought assign to it, such as Rix, Rickson, 
Dix, Dixon (Dick's son), Dickens, Hitchcock. 
Bates, Batty, Bartlett, and many other forms go 
back to Bartholomew. 

Drew, Warin (giving Warren, etc.), Paine, 
Ivo, and Hamon (giving Hammond), are some per- 
sonal names that were common after the Conquest, 
but are now out of use. 

The Crusades gave a great impulse to the use of 
the name John, with reference to John the Baptist. 
John was the most common English personal name 
from 1300 to 1700. The other name of the Bap- 
tist, Elias, also became very popular ; Ellis, Elliot, 
Elkins, etc., show this. The river Jordan, insepara- 
bly associated with John's labors, became a popular 
personal name, and then a surname. Judd (giving 
Judson) is thought to be a pet-form of the word. 

Jack (French Jaques, Jacques, from Latin Jaco- 



SURNAMES FROM BAPTISMAL NAMES 327 

bus) was not properly a pet-form of John, but was 
always looked upon in England as a more familiar 
form of that most common of names. Hence Jack 
is found everywhere in our common speech, and 
shows us how natural, even instinctive, the process 
of personification is to the popular mind. We have 
Jack everywhere in folk-tales, in Mother Goose, 
and in popular proverbs. We have such words as 
jackanapes, Jack-o'-lantern (the rival name Wil- 
liam appears in the rival term Will-o'-the-wisp), 
Jack-of-all-trades, jack-ass, jack-daw, jack-knife, 
boot-jack, jack-et, and so on through an endless 
list. Jackson is a very common surname. 

Some names are metronymics, or surnames made 
from the personal name of the mother. Adoption, 
posthumous birth, the higher rank of the mother, 
and similar causes explain the origin of these names ; 
but undoubtedly they were often applied to illegiti- 
mate children. Emmett (Em), Sisson (Siss, from 
Cicely, Cecilia), Tillotson (Til, from Matilda), 
and Nelson, are common metronymics. 

The Puritan movement brought in a change in 
the fashion of personal names almost as marked as 
that following the Norman Conquest. Old Testa- 
ment names, the Christian graces, and motto-names, 
which were often condensed prayers (Standfast, 
Livewell), indicate the new fashion. But surnames 
were already fixed, and some additional personal 
names, such as Josiah, Rachel, Hope, Faith, and 
Prudence, are all that is left us from that convul- 
sion in our nomenclature. Said one writer, with 



328 ENGLISH SURNAMES 

amusing exaggeration : " Cromwell hath beat up 
his drums clean through the Old Testament ; you 
♦ may know the genealogy of our Saviour by the 
names of his regiment. The muster master hath 
no other list than the first chapter of St. Matthew." 
It should be said that the use of two Chris- 
tian names, now so common, was an unusual thing 
before 1800. The heroes of the Revolution were 
content with two names each, including the sur- 
name. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson 
are examples. These names serve merely for the 
beginning of some modern names. 

SURNAMES OF RANK, OFFICE, AND OCCUPATION 

From the frequency of the name King, one 
might think that " kinging it " was at one time a 
very common occupation in England ; but the 
name is, of course, always a nickname, having at 
least three different sources, and belongs properly 
in the next class. In the first place, a person with 
a haughty bearing sometimes found himself dubbed 
King, much against his will. 

The name of Shakespeare's comedy " Twelfth 
Night " calls to mind the festivities which marked 
the twelfth day after Christmas, or Epiphany. The 
three wise men, whose visit to the Saviour was 
commemorated at that time, were known in legend 
as " the three kings." A person who took the part 
of one of these royal visitors in a rude Twelfth- 
Night representation of the coming of the Magi, 
might henceforward be called King. The four great 



RANK, OFFICE, AND OCCUPATION 329 

English cycles of religious plays also, containing 
the entire world history from The Fall of Lucifer 
to Doomsday, have each a representation of The 
Three Kings. A fifth version from the English 
Middle Ages makes a part of the Coventry pageant 
of The Nativity, played by the Shearmen and Tay- 
lors. 

Again, the old English custom of marking shops 
as well as inns with some distinctive sign, and the 
known popularity of " crowned heads " for use 
upon signboards, makes it almost certain that 
King sometimes meant originally at-the-sign-of-the- 
king. 

Of the names derived from occupation, a few are 
selected which need special explanation. Day means 
dairyman. Chapman means the same as merchant 
(Kauf mann) ; his goods were cheap. Clark was a 
clergyman, or one who, like a clergyman (clericus), 
was a scholar. The Barbers were also surgeons. 
Fletcher was an arrow-maker Qafleche, an arrow). 
Scribner was a professional writer of legal docu- 
ments (scrivener). The Arkwright made the great 
chests, called " arks," in which the family valuables 
were kept ; or less elaborate ones used as bins for 
the family flour. Bagster and Baxter (bake-ster) 
were plain Bakers ; -ster originally denoted a wo- 
man, as in spin-ster, but lost that special meaning. 

Let us put together names that come from the 
manufacture of cloth. These will help us to call 
back a time when homespun cloth was manufac- 
tured in every part of England. The Spinners and 



330 ENGLISH SURNAMES 

spinsters spun the thread. The spinsters, as such, 
have not given us a surname. The Webbs, Web- 
sters, and Weavers wove the thread into cloth. 
The Fullers trod the cloth with the feet in cleans- 
ing it ; hence a common name for a fuller was 
Walker. Walker may sometimes be a nickname ; 
the mighty leader of the Normans was called 
Hrolf (Rollo) the Ganger ( = walker). The Tuckers 
and Tuckermen were engaged in the manufacture 
of cloth (cp. the German TucK) ; but whether 
they were weavers or fullers is uncertain ; probably 
they were weavers. If the cloth was sold to mer- 
chants, it came into the hands of Drapers, Mercers, 
Chapmen, Merchants, Marchants, etc. 

Bailey, Baillie, was a bailiff. The ancestor of the 
royal family of Stewart was the Lord High Stew- 
ard of Scotland under Malcolm III. The origin 
of the surname was not forgotten even at the time 
of James VI. (afterwards James I. of England) ; 
at least he was described at his coronation as 
" Prince and Stewart of Scotland." 

NICKNAMES 

The first point to be made in considering this 
interesting class of names is that they were given 
by acquaintances, not selected by the ones whom 
they designated. It is plain that no man ever 
chose to be known to the world as Wild, Savage, 
Crook-shank (s) (Cruikshank is the Scotch spell- 
ing), or Longfellow. Hog(g) may have taken his 
name from the picture on the sign before his door, 



NICKNAMES 331 

but undoubtedly in some cases he was dubbed with 
an opprobrious nickname. 

Ames is from an old word meaning uncle. 
Power (s) is a doublet of Poor. 

In considering the names that came from the 
complexion, or in some cases from the hair, we are 
surprised that redness of face or hair seems to be 
unregistered in our common names. But Read, 
Reed, Reid, etc., are abundant evidence that per- 
sons with red hair, or with a ruddy complexion, 
were not wanting in the Middle Ages. 

None of the comments that I have seen upon 
this name Read clearly states the fact that red is 
the word that has been irregular in its develop- 
ment. Read is the regular phonetic successor of the 
Middle-English word reed, in the indefinite form of 
the adjective, or rede in the definite form. Either 
of these spellings in a well-spelled Middle-English 
MS. means that the vowel -ee-, -e-, is long in quan- 
tity. This word should regularly give modern Eng- 
lish read ; as Middle-English leef, leves, has given 
modern English leaf, leaves. During the eleventh 
and twelfth centuries especially, long accented 
vowels became shortened before two or more conso- 
nants. Hence we have such different vowel-sounds 
in words from the same stem as we find in : — 

wise wisdom 

white Whitsunday, Whitman, Whitefield 

But the influence of analogy has been constantly 
at work to obliterate the traces of the working of 



332 



ENGLISH SURNAMES 



this phonetic law. Usually we have what is called 
"leveling." All the forms take the same vowel- 
sound, either the long vowel of the simple word or 
the short vowel of the derivative or compound. 
Phonetic action is followed, so to speak, by a mental 
reaction, according to the law which Paul has fully 
illustrated in his " Principles of Language," to give 
the title of the English translation. In the follow- 
ing table, Anglo-Saxon forms are put in brackets ; 
forms which are the result of leveling are put in 
parentheses : — 



Read 


redness 


sheep shepherd 




(red) 


stone [stan] Stanton 


keep 


kept 


home [ham] Hamwell 




(friend) 


(homeward) Hampton 




friendly 


Hampden 


white 


(sick) 


broad [brad] Bradshaw 


(whiteness) 


sickness 


Braddon 


house [hus] 


husband 


Bradford 



One word in the list calls for comment. Broad 
should regularly have the same vowel-sound as do 
stone and home. I would suggest that broad has 
been influenced by the vowel of long, with which 
word it is closely associated in popular speech. " It's 
as broad as it is long" The fact that in the words 
length and breadth phonetic development has made 
the vowel sounds identical, may have helped : length 
is to long as breadth is to broad. A somewhat 
analogous influence oifar upon near seems to have 
caused near, originally a comparative, to be looked 
upon as a positive. 



NICKNAMES 333 

Place-names and surnames sometimes contain 
a vowel which has remained short, though the 
simple word afterwards experienced vowel-length- 
ening. 

old [from did, lengthened according to Aldgate 

rule from the Mercian aid. 1 Modern Alden 

English is derived from this Mercian, or Alf ord 
Midland dialect. The Anglo-Saxon eald, 
cited in our dictionaries, is the West- 
Saxon form of the word.] 

Another illustration of the light which surnames 
throw upon the laws governing the history of Eng- 
lish sounds is given if we ask the question, What 
is the sound in English to-day which represents 
an accented er + consonant in a word taken from 
French into English ? The following words are a 
few of those which show this combination : — 

merchant Merchant, Marchant 

person, parson Parsons 

clerk, English pronunciation dark Clark 

The surnames Parsons and Clark seem to show 
what is the regular sound-product in present Eng- 
lish of er + consonant in a word taken from French 
into Middle-English. The knowledge of the French 
and Latin forms on the part of the learned seems 
to have influenced decidedly the ordinary English 
words, and even the surnames in some cases. 

Black, White, and Brown (e) are probably com- 
plexion-names ; though complexion-names cannot 
1 See Kluge, Paul's Grundriss der germ. Philologie, vol. i. p. 866. 



334 ENGLISH SURNAMES 

be separated from those derived from the color of 
the hair or of the clothing. Hoar must usually 
come from the hair ; Blue, from the clothing, also 
Green (e) when not a place-name. Curtis was 
courteous. Silliman is a name that had originally 
a good meaning. 

Names taken from the animal kingdom are prob- 
ably often sign-names. The numberless Lions, 
Red Lions, Golden Lions, etc., that still exist on 
English signs, show how many a Lyon originated ; 
though, of course, any particular family with that 
name may have had a lion-hearted ancestor. Roun- 
tree (rowan-tree), Cherry, Ash, etc., are either 
place-names or sign-names. 

Some very common surnames that seem at first 
sight hard to explain are simply common nicknames 
from Celtic or from French, and correspond to well- 
known English surnames. To Black correspond 
the Celtic names Dow, Duff, Duffie, and Macduff. 
Roderick Dhu, if his name had been taken into 
English before the change of u to ow, namely, be- 
fore th,e fifteenth century, might have become the 
ancestor of a race of Dows. White corresponds to 
the Celtic Bean, Finn, and Finlay ; Brown, to the 
Celtic Dunn. Bigg, Mickle, High, etc., are par- 
allel in English to the French Gross and Grant 
(grand), and to the Celtic More, Moore, Moran. 
English Small and Little ; French Pettit, Pettee, 
Petty, etc. ; and the Celtic Beggs, — have all the 
same meaning. 



CONCLUSION 335 



CONCLUSION 



Some names, especially foreign ones, have be- 
come very much changed in form. One would not 
at first see in Sidney, Seymour, and Sinclair, later 
forms of the French names, Saint Denis, Saint 
Maur, and Saint Clair. Bunyan is from Bon- Jean 
(Good- John). 

Popular etymology, the forcing of meaning into 
words which have no apparent English significance, 
has altered many names. To illustrate this very 
common process of putting meaning into words, take 
the phrase from Tennyson's " Northern Farmer," 
"Down i' the woild 'enemies" (anemones). The 
word anemone is meaningless to the rustic, and the 
well-known enemy is made to take its place. Fox 
is in some cases derived from Fawkes and similar 
forms. These names go back to the personal name 
Fulke, which was borne by the paternal grandfather 
of Henry II., and was in common use after the 
Conquest. Fox is also a true nickname, denoting 
craftiness, as well as a sign-name. The threefold 
origin of this name is typical of what is true in 
many cases. Doolittle is confidently asserted to be 
in some cases a popular etymology from de Vhotel 
(from the hotel). 

The number of stories connected with names is 
legion. Let us close with a few of them. 

In Scott's " Peveril of the Peak " we are told of 
a cross Mrs. Cresswell who bequeathed £10 to be 
paid for a funeral sermon in which nothing ill- 



336 ENGLISH SURNAMES 

natured was to be said of her. The Duke of Buck- 
ingham wrote the following brief but pointed dis- 
course : " All I shall say of her is this : she was 
born well, she married well, she lived well, and she 
died well ; for she was born at Shad well, married 
to Cresswell, lived at Clerkenwell, and died in 
Bridewell." 

Praise-God Barebone, who gave his name to 
Barebone's Parliament, had a brother who is said 
to have chosen for himself the title If-Christ-had- 
not-died-f or - you - you-had - been-damned Barebone. 
His acquaintances cut this first name down to the 
last syllable, thus securing in " Damned Barebone " 
a designation at once brief, Scriptural, and unam- 
biguous. 

A certain Dr. Mountain, chaplain to Charles II., 
was asked by the king if he could recommend a 
suitable man for a vacant bishopric. " Sire," he 
replied, " if you had faith but as a grain of mus- 
tard-seed, the matter could be settled at once." 
" How ? " inquired the astonished monarch. " Why, 
my liege, you could then say unto this Mountain, 
4 Be thou removed into that see,' and it should be 
done." The witty chaplain secured the bishopric. 



THE STYLE OF ANGLO-SAXON 
POETRY 



THE STYLE OF ANGLO-SAXON 
POETRY 1 

THE METRE 

It is desirable to explain briefly at the begin- 
ning of this paper, the two main opinions that have 
been held concerning the metre of Anglo-Saxon 
poetry. Each line of this verse consists of two 
equal parts, which were separated in utterance by 
a pause, or cesura. The question whether one of 
these half lines contained two accented syllables, 
marking two measures, or four stresses, giving four 
measures, has been debated in Germany with an 
amount of ability, zeal, and warm feeling which we 
of America employ only in discussing social, theo- 
logical, or political topics. 

If we assume that the half line contained only 
two measures, then the syllables marked in the fol- 
lowing passage received the accent : 

" Wes thu Hro'thgar ha'l ! ic eom Hi'gela'ces 
Be thou, Hrothgar, hale ! I am Higelac's 

" mae'g and ma'go-thegn ; haebbe ic mae'rtha fe'la 
Kinsman and war-thane ; I have exploits many 

1 Reprinted from the Publications of the Modern Language Asso- 
ciation, vol. iii. (1887), pp. 17-47. This paper was written nearly 
twenty years ago. Since that time the writer's studies have lain 
outside the field of Anglo-Saxon, and it has not been practicable, 
in reprinting the article, to give it any general revision. 



340 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

a ongu'nnen on geo'gothe. Me wearth Gre'ndles th'ing 
Undertaken in youth. To me was Grendel's deed 

" on minre e'thel-ty'rf u'ndyrne cu'th." 

in my native land clearly known. 

Beowulf, U. 407-10. 

The rule concerning the alliteration is that 
usually both of the accented syllables in the first 
half of the line (sometimes only one of them) and 
the first accented syllable in the second half line 
begin with the same consonant or with any vowel. 
The last line above has only two alliterating sylla- 
bles, and these begin with different vowels. 

It will be noted that there is great irregularity 
in the above passage in the distribution of the 
stressed and unstressed syllables ; but the move- 
ment may have somewhat resembled that of the 
following smoother and more regular verses of 
modern authors : 1 — 

" Long" ere the Pale Face Crossed the Great Water, 
Miantowona Passed, with her beauty, 

Into a leg-end Pure as a wild-flower 

Found in a broken Ledge by the seaside." 

Aldrich, Miantowona. 

" O young Mariner, You from the haven 

Under the sea-cliff, You that are watching 

The gray Magician With eyes of wonder, 

I am Merlin, And I am dying", 

I am Merlin Who follow The Gleam. " 

Tennyson, Merlin and the Gleam. 

The older opinion, still advocated by some schol- 
ars, is that each half line of Anglo-Saxon verse 
consisted of four measures. The alliterative lines 

1 To facilitate comparison with the Anglo-Saxon, these pas- 
sages are printed with two verses to the line. 



THE METRE 341 

of Middle English are interpreted by them in the 
same way, the opening verses of " Piers the Plow- 
man " being thus divided into measures by Pro- 
fessor March : 1 — 

" In' a | so"mer | se"s | on v | |whan) so'ft | was the | so' nn | e 
I) sho"pe | me* in | shro'ud | es 1 1 as) I' a | she'pe | we'r | e 
In) ha "bite | as an | he"re | mite 1 1 un)ho"l | y v of | wo'rk | es 
Went | wy "de | in this | wo"rld| |wo"nd | res to | he"r | e." 

The double accent is not employed by Professor 
March. It is used here to mark the syllables which 
are accented by those who read the half line with 
two stresses, as does Professor Skeat. 

Those who hold the opinion that there were four 
accents in the alliterative half line of Anglo-Saxon 
and Middle English believe that the later rhymed 
poetry of the folk-songs, or popular ballads, came 
from the old alliterative verse. According to this 
view, the common ballad stanza is the equivalent 
of two full lines of the older verse, but has a silent 
measure at the end of the second and fourth lines. 
For example : — 

" In som | er, when | the shawes | be sheyne, 

And leves | be large | and long, | | 

Hit is | full mer | y in feyre | f oreste 

To here | the foul | ys song." | | 

Robin Hood and the Monk. 

This stanza becomes more regular in the Common 
Metre of our hymn-books. In the Long Metre 
stanza, every verse has four complete measures ; 
in the Short Metre, three of the four verses end 
with a silent measure. 

1 Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Language, New York, 1869, 
p. 228. 



842 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

In a few cases in Anglo-Saxon we have end- 
rhyme joining together the two half lines. Those 
favoring four stresses to the half line would read 
such a verse in this way : — 

ba'nco'fan on'ba'nd, breo'stlo'can on'wa'nd 
the bone-chamber unbound, the breast-enclosure unwound 

Such a line would be looked upon as the metrical 
ancestor of a couplet like this, one half of a Long 
Metre stanza : — 

■ ' Jesus | shall reign | where'er | the sun | Does his | success | ive 
jour | neys run." 

The predominant opinion among modern scholars 
is that the Anglo-Saxon half line had two accents, or 
measures. The present paper as originally written 
assumed the truth of this interpretation of our 
older verse, and for the most part the expressions 
which refer to this theory as the correct one have 
been left unchanged. This view finds four accents 
in the entire line ; as already indicated, three of 
these usually alliterate and two of them must 
do so. 

The relative power of the different word-classes 
to draw to themselves the accent, and so the alliter- 
ation, is clearly defined. Nouns and adjectives, the 
nomen class of the grammarians, have the highest 
rank, and under ordinary circumstances cannot 
be passed over. Next come adverbs ; then, verbs ; 
and finally, pronouns and particles. These last 
words cannot ordinarily carry the rhythmical stress, 
but may if they have a strong logical accent. 



CONCISENESS AND ENERGY 343 

I. CONCISENESS AND ENERGY 

We now turn to look at the style of Anglo-Saxon 
poetry, where we shall find some natural results, 
or at least accompaniments, of this metre. The ex- 
treme emphasis resulting from accent and alliter- 
ation combined upon the same syllables naturally 
goes with a highly intense, vigorous style. And 
this we have. Anglo-Saxon poetry is always more 
than lively; it is intense. One writer speaks of 
" the strange emphasis of the whole Anglo-Saxon 
style." 1 The great weight given to the nouns and 
adjectives in the construction of strong lines, and 
next after that class to the verbs, compels the poet 
to express himself powerfully and concisely. The 
verse demands strong nouns, adjectives, and verbs ; 
and these, of necessity, state the thought with brev- 
ity and power. The blows of the sturdy syllables, 
highly stressed in order to bring out the alliteration, 
must carry with them blows of expressed thought 
or action. The poet cannot retard the expression 
of a thought, but the moment it is broached he 
must hurl it forth. Says Taine : " The poet's chief 
care is to abridge, to imprison thought in a kind of 
mutilated cry." 2 This is partly true, and empha- 
sizes what has been said. Thus we see that con- 
ciseness of language and extreme energy of expres- 
sion constitute a central characteristic of the style 
of this poetry ; and we see the natural connection 

1 Rehrmann, " Essay concerning Anglo-Saxon Poetry," Jahres- 
bericht, etc., Liibben, 1877. 

2 History of English Literature, Book I. chap. i. sec. v. 



344 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

of this with the alliterative metre. Of course we 
need not suppose that this characteristic was not as 
much in accord with the disposition of the poet as 
with the nature of the metre. Professor ten Brink 
remarks upon this feature of style as follows : 
" The lack in the Old English epic of the clearness 
and fine completeness of the Homeric, is at least 
partially made good by the greater directness of 
expression. The poet's excitement is not seldom 
imparted to the listener; in situations that seem 
to justify it, this is very effective." 1 

(a) Adapted to war poetry. — War is the 
leading subject of Anglo-Saxon poetry; and this 
vigorous style is peculiarly adapted to that theme. 

(b) Synonym instead of pronoun. — A device 
of style which often increases this emphasis of 
diction is the use of a strong synonym or epithet 
instead of a simple personal pronoun. This, too, 
is a necessity of the metre, and will be dwelt upon 
in another place. 

(c) Vigor of the figures of speech. — The re- 
markable vigor of the Anglo-Saxon figures of 
speech is one source of the abounding energy of this 
poetry. This feature will be considered later. 

(d) Simplicity of sentence-structure. — The 
typical Anglo-Saxon sentence is as simple as it is 
strong. Says Rehrmann : " The simple principal 
sentence is the most popular form, . . . accessory 
sentences [clauses] are employed as rarely as pos- 
sible. . . . Relative sentences are very frequent, 

1 Early English Literature, New York, 1883, p. 21. 



REPETITION WITH VARIATION 345 

of course, but they are always of the greatest sim- 
plicity." 

' ' The earl was for this the blither, 
Laughed then the bold man, gave thanks to the Creator 
For the day's work, which his Lord gTanted him." 

The Death of Byrhtnoth, 146. 

I cannot agree with Professor Lounsbury when 
he says of Anglo-Saxon poetry, " The construction 
of its sentences is often involved and intricate." 1 

II. REPETITION OF THOUGHT WITH VARIATION 
OF EXPRESSION 

Here a difficulty arises closely analogous to that 
which the architect experiences in the use of iron 
as a building material. It is easy to get strength, 
but hard to get volume. The pillar which is abun- 
dantly strong for its place, is yet too insignificant 
in size to be imposing. The Anglo-Saxon poet 
avoids this difficulty by repeating his ideas in every 
possible way, but not his words. The remorseless 
energy of the alliterative metre uses up, devours, 
the thought so rapidly that repetition becomes a 
necessity. The result is that Anglo-Saxon poetry 
progresses like a spirited horse, which takes a few 
long bounds forward, only to follow that by much 
prancing and tossing without any advance. But 
this repetition of the main idea is made enjoyable 
by the constant variation of the language. Each 
repetition must emphasize some new phase or char- 
acteristic by the use of new terms. Hence our 
second great principle of Anglo-Saxon poetical 

1 History of English Language, 2d ed., New York, 1894, p. 32. 



346 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

style is : Repetition of the thought with variation 
of the expression. This repetition with variation 
takes many forms. A noun may have three or four 
appositional phrases scattered through all parts of 
the sentence, or there may be complete parallelism 
of successive sentences, which is a favorite form of 
expression. But parallelism is evidently not a prin- 
ciple with the Anglo-Saxon poet. . The principle is 
as we have stated it. He is as well satisfied to 
repeat a subject or object three or four times, and 
other elements of the sentence not at all, as he is 
to construct a complete parallelism. 

" A tumult arose 
Continually renewed. There stood to the North-Danes 
Dreadful terror, to each one 
Of those who from the wall heard the weeping*, 
The antagonist of God singing* his terrible note, 
Unvictorious song, bewailing his pain 
The hell-fettered one." 

Beowulf, 783. 

The repetitions in the next two extracts show no 
tendency to form complete parallelisms. 

" Then round the mound the battle-brave rode, 
Sons of athelings, twelve in all, 
Wished to tell their sorrow, bewail the king, 
Wreak their words, and speak of the man." 

Beowulf, 3171. 

"... they [Constantinus and Anlaf] might not laugh 
That they were better in the battle-work 
Upon the battle-stead, in the clash of banners, 
In the meeting of spears, the gathering of men, 
The interchange oL weapons, after they on the slaughter-field 
Had played with the offspring of Edward." 

The Battle of Brunanburh, 47. 

(a) The poetical synonym. — From repetition 



REPETITION WITH VARIATION 347 

with variation, taken in connection with the pre- 
dominant metrical power of the nomen class, 
springs at once the importance of epithet, or syno- 
nym, in this poetry. Indeed, it may be called the 
poetry of synonym. The metrical weakness of the 
pronoun, on account of which it frequently cannot 
be used, is one explanation of the great abundance 
of synonyms, epithets (Norse, Kenningar). If a 
king has drawn the sword upon his enemy, he will 
not strike him with it ; but the noble lord, or the 
battle-bold one, will strike the hostile one, or the 
death-doomed one, with the ancient heirloom, or 
the battle-gleam. Of course many simple personal 
pronouns are used, but the tendency to replace 
them with poetical synonyms is very evident. For 
example : — 

" [Holofernes] laughed and roared, vociferated and dinned, 
So that the children of men might hear from afar 
How the fierce-minded one stormed and yelled." 

Judith, 23. 

Sometimes the unemphatic pronoun and the 
emphatic epithet stand side by side, instead of one 
forcing out the other ; as is the case with the ap- 
positive adjectives in the following : — 

" Went then straight away 
The women twain bold-of-courage, 
Until they came strong -of -mind. 
The joyfully triumphant maids, out of that army, 
So that they clearly could see 
Of the beautiful city the walls glitter, 
Bethulia. They then adorned-with-rings 
Hurried forward their steps, 
Until they glad-of-mind had come 
To the wall-gate." 

Judith, 132. 



348 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

These synonyms, epithets, Kenningar, whether 
replacing pronouns, or mere appositions and syn- 
tactically superfluous, are a central feature of 
this poetry. It is very plainly more fond of using 
them than of repeating the action of the verb. 
This agrees with the metrical importance of the 
nomen class. Heinzel treats under a special head, 
as a feature of all early Germanic poetry, "Ab- 
getrennte Apposition," or appositions which are 
separated from their nouns. 1 But the distinction 
is not important for Anglo-Saxon ; appositive ex- 
pressions can come anywhere in the sentence after 
their noun or pronoun. It is perhaps even the 
exception for appositive synonyms to follow their 
antecedents directly. They are variously placed in 
the following extract (one of them is instead of a 
pronoun) : — 

" The field flowed 
With the blood of the warriors, after the sun on high 
In the morning-tide, illustrious star, 
Glided over the valleys, God's bright candle, 
The eternal Lord's, until the noble creature 
Sank to his setting." 

The Battle of Brunanburh, 12. 

It is very common for an epithet to close the sen- 
tence ; as here : — 

" They had rebelled against the defender of the Scylfings, 
The best one of the sea-kings, 
Of those who in the Swedes' kingdom distributed treasure, 

Illustrious prince." 

Beowulf, 2382. 

1 Ueber den Stil der altgermanischen Poesie, Strassburg, 1875, 
p. 5. 



REPETITION WITH VARIATION 349 

The treatise of Dr. Wilhelm Bode, " Die Ken- 
ningar in der Angelsachsischen Dichtung," 1 is 
very full and satisfactory. He divides the syno- 
nyms, or Kenningar, into five classes, as follows : 

First, — those which portray their subjects di- 
rectly and fully; as, " the bright king," for God; 
" the black fiend," for the Devil: Second, — those 
which fix upon some particular part of the idea 
and present the thought by synecdoche ; as, " sword- 
play," for battle ; " shield-bearers," for warriors 
(these two classes are of the nature of epitheta or- 
nantia) : Third, — metaphorical synonyms, the 
most numerous group ; as, "the sail-road" and "the 
cup of the waves," for the ocean : Fourth, — syno- 
nyms which embody a definition of their subjects ; 
as, " slaughter-shaft," for spear ; " soul-bearers," 
for men : Fifth, — synonyms which contain an 
allusion ;, as, " W eland's work," for Beowulf's coat- 
of-mail ; " God's handiwork," for men. These five 
classes run together more or less. — Strictly speak- 
ing, the term " synonym," which I have employed 
for the most part, is broader than either of the 
terms " epithet " and " Kenning," and includes all 
of the designations which can be used for a given 
idea. Hence it is the best term for my purpose. I 
am sorry that Dr. Bode has not given all of those 
expressions for each of the ideas treated by him, 
which he considers to be literal (" Eigentliche 
Ausdriicke "), since the line between these and the 
Kenningar is a shadowy one. 

1 Darmstadt und Leipzig", 1886. 



350 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

I have collected with some care every noun in 
" Beowulf " and every noun followed by a genitive 
which is used to denote any one of the three ideas, — 
ocean, sword, and ship. In order to secure a clear 
line of demarcation, I have excluded all words 
which Heyne, in the glossary to his edition of the 
poem, gives as adjectives, even though they may 
occur also as substantives or appositives. With 
these exclusions I find forty-two simple and com- 
pound nouns in " Beowulf " which mean ocean, and 
ten nouns + genitives ; twenty-nine nouns which 
mean sword, and two nouns + genitives ; and 
twenty-one nouns which mean ship. 1 Some of the 
synonyms for ocean may be thus translated : the sea- 

1 Ocean : — Brirn, brim-lad, brim-stream, brim-wylm, eg-stredm, 
edgor-stredm, eolet, faroth, fibd, fiod-yih, ford, gar-secg, geofon, 
heaf, hedthu, holm, holm-wylm, lagu-strdet, hran-rad, lagu, lagu- 
stredm, mere, mere-strdet, sde, sde-lad, sde-wylmas, segl-rad, stream, 
sund, sund-gebland, swan-rad, waed, wdeg, wdeg-holm, waelm, wae- 
ter, waeter-egesa, waeter-yth, wylm, ytha, yth-gebland, yth-gewin. — 
Total, 42. 

Floda begang, Jidda genipu, ganotes baeth, geofenes begang, holma 
gethring, sidletha begong, waeteres hrycg, ythaful, ytha geswing,ytha 
gewealc. — Total, 10. 

Sword : — Beado-ledma, beado-m$ce, bil, brand, ecg, gtith-bil, 
gUth-sweord, gvlth-wine, haeft-mece, heard-ecg, heoru, hilde-bil, hilde- 
ledrna, hilde-m&ce, hilt, hring-iren, hring-mdel, iren, laf, ledma, 
mathum-sweord, maegen-fultum, mece, secg, sige-wdepen, sweord, 
wdeg-sweord, wdepen, yrfe-laf. — Total, 29. 

Fela lafe, lafe homera. — Total, 2. 

Ship : — Bat, brenting, bunden-stefna, cebl, Jaer } fiota, hringed- 
stefna, hring-naca, lida, naca, sde-bat, sde-genga, sde-wudu, scip, 
stefn, sund-wudu, weg-Jlota, wudu, wunden-stefna, yth-lida, [yth\- 
naca. — Total, 21. 



REPETITION WITH VARIATION 351 

stream, the water-street, the whale-road, the tumult 
of waters, the swan-road, the battling of the waves, 
the cup of the waves. For sword we have : the 
hard-edge, the battle-gleam, the leavings of the files, 
the leavings of the hammers. A ship is : the ringed 
prow, the sea-goer, the sea-wood, the wave-floater, 
etc. 

In the 350 lines of " Judith " which remain to 
us, the poet varies with great skill his expressions 
for Holofernes, for Judith, for the Assyrians, and 
for the Jews. Within a few lines (9-20), for ex- 
ample, the Assyrians are termed heroes, retainers, 
shield-warriors, leaders of the folk, proud ones, 
companions-in-evil, bold corselet-warriors, hall- 
sitters, doomed ones, and brave shield-warriors 
(gumas, thegnas, rondwiggende, folces raeswan, 
wlance, weagesithas, bealde byrnwiggende, flettsit- 
tende, faege, rofe rondwiggende). When he men- 
tions them again a few lines farther on (27-31), 
he does not begin repeating these terms, but calls 
them bench-sitters, liegemen, and nobles (benc- 
sittende, dryhtguman, duguth). Since prose does 
not need any such store of synonyms, many of 
these epithets are never found outside of poetry. 

It is to be expected that these epithets will be 
sometimes used in a stock way, without a clear 
regard to their full force. Even Homer says, 
in similar fashion, " Then the son of Menoitios 
kindled a great fire, the godlike man/' (Iliad, IX. 
211). But it does seem strange to find the course 



352 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

of the narrative actually contradicting the epithet 
employed, as in this case : 1 — 

1 i The war-sword gave way, 
Naked in the contest, as it should not do, 
Excellent iron." 

Beowulf, 2585. 

Epithets which the narrative does not call for 
or explain are quite common. It is usually clear 
that these are employed simply as general terms 
of praise or reproach. 

(b) Figures of speech. — Simile and allegory 
seem to be too conscious and elaborate for the 
Anglo-Saxon mind. Allegory is not found in " Beo- 
wulf "; and there are but five similes (lines 218, 
728, 986, 1572, 1609), as follows: a ship sails 
away " most like to a bird " ; the light from Gren- 
del's eyes is " most like to flame " ; his claws are 
" most like to steel " ; the sword with which Beo- 
wulf kills Grendel's mother melts away in her 
poisonous blood " most like to ice when the frost-fet- 
ters the Father unlooseth." This last simile and 
the only remaining one have each more than the ne- 
cessary two words. The sword which Beowulf has 
snatched from the wall lights up the ocean-chamber 

" Just as from heaven brightly shineth 
The candle of the firmament." 

LI. 1572-3. 

In really representative Anglo-Saxon poetry, the 
usage is very much as in " Beowulf." 

1 The translation follows Heyne and Garnett. Professor F. A. 
Blackhurn interprets " aer-god," translated " excellent, " as mean- 
ing " always good before," an epithet that would be entirely fitting. 



REPETITION WITH VARIATION 353 

Professor Heinzel, in the monograph already 
referred to, insists on connecting each peculiarity 
of the style of early Teutonic poetry with a similar 
peculiarity in the Sanskrit Vedas, and considers the 
Vedic hymns to be the closest existing representative 
of an original Indo-European literature, of which 
all the individual literatures are descendants. He 
treats the separate nations and languages as mere 
transmitters of early characteristics, and as occa- 
sionally failing to do even that. Thus the resources 
of poetry in any later literature, at least as regards 
the style, may be fewer than those seen in the Old 
Sanskrit, but cannot be more numerous. Heinzel 
cites this great scarcity of the simile in Anglo- 
Saxon, when contrasted with the Vedas, and feels 
obliged to explain this "loss of the simile." He 
attributes it to the influence of Christianity, which 
he thinks to have permeated and transformed even 
" Beowulf." The passionate character of the Norse- 
men, untempered by Christianity, explains, on the 
other hand, the " survival of the simile " in Old 
Norse. It seems to me that few can agree with this. 
Is simile the language of passion ? and would the 
alleviating influence of Christianity drive it out ? 
Most certainly not. Ten Brink says, substantially, 
that the impetuous character of the Anglo-Saxons 
prevented them from using the simile. 1 But Hein- 
zel makes the Old Norse keep it for that very 
reason. At any rate, the fact is that the Anglo- 
Saxons are fond of the metaphor and the similar 

1 Early English Literature, p. 19. 



354 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

figures of speech. These figures are more short 
and forcible, more nervous, than the simile. The 
metaphor is a flash of lightning, giving the maxi- 
mum of light and heat in the minimum of time. It 
is plain, too, that those figures which can be com- 
plete in a single word are naturally agreeable to the 
Anglo-Saxon metre with its hammer-strokes. 

Dr. (now Professor) F. B. Gummere replied 
to Heinzel. 1 His positions seem to me well taken, 
and they agree with ten Brink's explanation of the 
scarcity of simile in Anglo-Saxon. His statements 
are as follows, in substance : — 

1. The passionate character of the Teutonic race 
is thoroughly opposed to simile. This is seen in 
Anglo-Saxon and Old High German. 

2. Anglo-Saxon does, historically, take its simile 
from foreign influences. 

3. The real task is to explain the presence of 
the simile in the passionate Old Norse. 

4. " Beowulf " is a heathen poem, with no posi- 
tive Christian treatment. 

But let us look one moment at this assumed 
abundance of similes in Old Norse. Where in the 
literature are they found most plentifully ? And 
what is their character and importance ? I am not 
a student of Old Norse, but I have carefully looked 
through Vigf usson and Powell's translations of the 
earliest Northern poetry. 2 In the " Atla-Kvitha," 

1 The Anglo-Saxon Metaphor, Freiburg", 1881. 

2 Corpus Poeticum Boreale, 2 vols., Oxford, 1883. 



REPETITION WITH VARIATION 355 

occupying eight octavo pages, there are no similes. 
In the " Hamthis-Mal," occupying seven pages, 
there are seven similes, three in one place. In all 
the fragments of the "Helgi Trilogy," covering 
twenty-four pages, there are four similes, three in 
one place. These pages are about equivalent to 
duodecimo pages, as the translation is printed at 
the bottom of each page. This is certainly not a 
great abundance of similes. Some of them are more 
highly developed than those in " Beowulf," but all 
are short. They bear no resemblance to the elabo- 
rate Homeric simile. 

Gummere's paper upon the Anglo-Saxon meta- 
phor covers the ground so completely that I will 
refer all persons to it for details and for a very 
elaborate classification. He really treats the whole 
question of figures of speech in this poetry, as he 
brings metonymy and synecdoche under metaphor, 
discusses the rarity of the simile, and treats per- 
sonification at length. On this general question 
I can agree with him for the most part, though I 
shall state my view somewhat differently : — 

We cannot conceive a language sufficiently de- 
veloped to have a literature unless the figures of 
Personification, Metaphor, Synecdoche, and Me- 
tonymy are all present ; that is, Personification 
and the figures which easily condense themselves 
into a single word. All of these figurative words 
Gummere calls " metaphors." Thus he uses the 
word metaphor in two senses. I should prefer 



356 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

to call them tropes, as suggested by Professor 
Minto. 1 

It may be questioned whether any of these figures 
are at first employed consciously, except Personifi- 
cation, which, in primitive language, is the most 
natural and the most literal form of expression. 
Gummere says well, " A flexibility of terms is the 
real origin of the metaphor ; Cynewulf is conscious 
of no metaphor in calling a bird's nest a hits " 
(house). Any one fond of children is familiar with 
this stage of language. Their words are few and 
flexible, and are easily stretched to cover new ideas 
and objects. To a certain extent language is always 
in this stage. I can drive the dog " into his kennel" 
or " into his house" I am not even sure that such 
phrases in Anglo-Saxon as " the candle of the fir- 
mament," " the world-candle," etc., applied to the 
sun, were conscious metaphors ; and a strictly un- 
conscious metaphor is none at all to those who first 
use it ; it is only one of the meanings naturally 
included in a word which is still undefined. A later 
precision in the use of terms causes these words to 
shrink up in content, like lakes in a drought, and 
many of these old uses of the words and old phrases 
containing them are left stranded high upon the 
beach as metaphors. Accompanying this increasing 
precision of language, by which old words and 
phrases begin to be felt as figurative, there is the 
conscious origination of simple metaphors, metony- 

1 Manual of English Prose Literature, 2d ed., p. 12, Edinburgh 
and London, 1881. 



REPETITION WITH VARIATION 357 

mies, etc., but not at first of similes. This is 
the point at which we must place the language of 
the representative Anglo-Saxon poetry, whatever 
Heinzel may think of its historic antecedents and 
relationships. Ten Brink says of the Anglo-Saxon 
metaphors that " most of them' were not felt to be 
figurative." This is not, as is so common in culti- 
vated language, because the force once belonging 
to a metaphor has so faded out that it has become 
practically literal in its use. I am now speaking 
of words and phrases which have never yet been 
felt as figurative by their users, though they are 
such in our present use and to our present speech- 
consciousness. 

We see now why simile was so rare in this 
poetry, and allegory almost entirely lacking. The 
poets were not yet sufficiently self-conscious, not 
capable enough of analyzing their own mental pro- 
cesses, not well enough able to stand above the 
field of action and choose out scattered objects for 
comparison, — to employ elaborate and sustained 
simile. They were too vitally interested in what 
they said to be able to hold it off and examine it 
coolly with a view to the most effective presenta- 
tion. They did not wish to do this ; and the strong 
shocks of the alliterating accents did not encourage 
fine-spun figures of speech. " Detailed and ample 
similes are first found in ' Christ,' " says ten Brink. 
" There are but two, . . . and these are very old 
ones that Cynewulf found in his originals." 

That the Anglo-Saxon poet was hardly conscious 



358 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

of his metaphors and certainly not of some of them, 
is clear from his perfect readiness to mix meta- 
phors. " The typical Anglo-Saxon metaphor," as 
Gummere says, " is confined to one word, or at 
most to several words in the closest syntactical 
relation." One metaphor in the subject gives way 
to another in the verb, and perhaps to a third 
in the object. When Beowulf's sword would not 
wound Grendel's mother, the poet says, " The bat- 
tle-gleam would not bite " (line 1524), as though 
all well-regulated gleams were carnivorous. If a 
metaphor is preserved for a few words it is soon 
cast aside, as in this case : — 

" The wound-gates burst open, then the blood sprang forth 
From the body's hostile bite " (i. e. wound). 

Beowulf, 1122. 

Here are the best instances that I have been 
able to find in " Beowulf " of sustained metaphor (in 
the first Wiglaf is trying to revive Beowulf) : — 

" He began once more 
To cast water upon him, until the point of the word 
Brake through the breast-hoard.' ' 

Beowulf, 2791. 

"... until the wave of death 
1 Touched at his heart." 

Ibid. 2270. 

" . . . in him the love of woman 
Because of care-waves shall become cooler." 

Ibid. 2066. 

No one looked upon the cruel Thrytho (or Mod- 
thrytho) 

" But he appointed for himself death-fetters firm, 
Twisted by hand." 

Beowulf, 1937. 



REPETITION WITH VARIATION 359 

The vigor of the tropes in this poetry is wonder- 
ful. In " Genesis " (1384) the drowning of wicked 
men is thus expressed : " The waves of the King 
of glory drove the souls of the impious ones from 
the flesh-garments." When the " Exodus " poet 
would tell us that no one was trying to cause amuse- 
ment, he says (43), " The hands of the laughter- 
smiths were closed." x In describing the overthrow 
of Pharaoh's host the same poem says (63) : " The 
mightiest of sea-deaths lashed the sky." It is re- 
freshing to turn to such verse from modern trio- 
lets and rondeaus. 

A striking instance of allegory is found in 
" Genesis," 987-95. This we probably owe to 
theological influences. The tree of death, of which 
Adam and Eve have partaken, is made to extend 
its myriad branches throughout all the earth and 
touch every child of man, " as it still doth " — an 
Ygdrasil of evil. 

(c) Parallelism. — The principle of repetition 
with variation often resulted in complete paral- 
lelisms, as complete as those of the Hebrew po- 
etry. Though parallelism does not seem to be a 
principle of Anglo-Saxon poetry, it occurs very 
frequently, and seems to have been sometimes con- 
sciously sought. Eepetition of the thought with 
variation of the expression necessarily took this 
form in many cases. Here are five successive 

1 Professor F. A. Blackburn believes that "the laughter- 
smiths " are an allusion to " the magicians " of Exodus viii. 18, 
etc. ; and that these are conceived as jugglers, or sleight-of-hand 
men, whose business was to amuse the court. 



360 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

statements of the fact that Beowulf's ship got 
under way : — 

" The sea- wood groaned ; 
Not at all there the wave-floater did the wind o'er the billows 
From its course hinder ; the sea-goer went, 
The foamy-necked floated forth over the flood, 
The bound prow over the ocean streams." 

Beowulf, 1907. 

These are good examples of Anglo-Saxon paral- 
lels. 

(d) Negative form of statement. — The second 
one of the above clauses differs from the rest in 
being stated in the negative form. In the Anglo- 
Saxon repetitions the desired variation of the ex- 
pression is often assisted by denying the opposite 
of something already stated. The killing of the 
dragon by Beowulf is so important that it must be 
set forth in every possible way. Notice the alter- 
nation of positive and negative clauses : — 

" The slayer also lay, 
The terrible earth-drake, deprived of life, 
Oppressed by bale : the ring-hoard longer 
The twisted worm might not control ; 
But the edges of irons took him away, 
The hard battle-sharp leavings of hammers, 
So that the wide-flyer, still from his wounds, 
Fell on the earth near to the hoard-hall : 
Not at all through the air did he go flying 
In the middle of the night, proud of costly treasures 
Showed his form : but he to earth fell 
On account of the hand-work of the battle-prince." 

Beowulf, 2825. 



DISCONNECTEDNESS 361 

III. DISCONNECTEDNESS 

Every reader of this poetry is at once struck by 
the abrupt, disconnected manner in which its ideas 
are expressed. It is hard to generalize, however. 
Here and there, especially in the later poetry, pas- 
sages can be found in which the rhetoric is really 
elaborate and the connections of thought are very 
fully indicated. This is true of that part of " Gen- 
esis " which Sievers showed to be closely related 
to the Old Saxon " Heliand," and which ten 
Brink calls the " Later Genesis." Of course an- 
tithesis is not uncommon, but we have an unus- 
ually clear-cut one in " Genesis," 353 : — 

" Welled up within him 
Pride in his heart, hot was without him 
The grievous torment." 

A little farther on we have a marked example 
of disconnectedness made expressive : — 

" Alas ! had I control of my hands, 
And could I for a time get loose, 

Be free for one winter-hour, then I with this troop — 
But ahout me lie iron bonds, 
The rope of fetters rides me." 

Genesis, 368. 

A striking instance of full and elaborate syntax 
is the following : — 

" If I to any thane lordly treasures 
In former years gave, while we in the good realm 
All blissful sate, and had sway of our thrones, — 
Then he to me at no more acceptable time might with reward 
My bounty requite, — if for this purpose 
Any one of my thanes would offer himself, 



362 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

So that he upward and outward might go hence, 

Might come through these barriers and strength in him had 

So that with feather-garments he might fly, 

Whirl on the welkin to where all fashioned stand 

Adam and Eve in the earth-kingdom 

With wealth surrounded, — and we are cast away hither 

Into these deep dales." 

Genesis, 409. 

In spite of such passages, however, the state- 
ments which have been made under this head are 
true in general for representative Anglo-Saxon 
poetry. Here again I can call attention to the con- 
sonance of the style with the metre. If one is dis- 
connected, so is the other ; for the lines of this po- 
etry do not consist of " linked sweetness long drawn 
out," but of small groups of vigorous accents. 

(a) Transitional particles, few and ambigu- 
ous. — The transitional particles of this poetry are 
few and somewhat ambiguous. Says ten Brink, — 
" [There is] a certain poverty of particles, which 
are the cement of sentence-structure, and indicate 
the delicate shading in the relations of thought." 1 
Taine remarks, — " Articles, particles, everything 
capable of illuminating thought, of marking the con- 
nection of terms, of producing regularity of ideas, 
all rational and logical artifices, are neglected. Pas- 
sion bellows forth like a great shapeless beast ; and 
that is all." 2 The quotation from ten Brink covers 
the ground ; Taine, however, is wrong in thrusting 
aside as rude and worthless the poems which he 
cannot appreciate. Anglo-Saxon poetry is emphatic 
and intense always, and often excited and dra- 

1 Page 20. 2 Book I. chap. i. sec. v. 



DISCONNECTEDNESS 363 

matic. It is only a natural consequence of this 
that it is disconnected and often inexact, and does 
not understand well how to take inventory in clear 
methodical fashion. It must not be compared with 
Homer for finish of style ; it knows not the conso- 
lations and refinements of the imperfect and the 
second aorist, but read it, Teuton ! and your heart- 
strings will twitch as if plucked by a hand reached 
from out the past. 

(b) Clauses dependent in construction but not 
in thought. — I have said that the particles are 
also somewhat ambiguous. Indeed, they sometimes 
mean practically nothing in poetry, from the fact 
that clauses which are subordinate in form may be 
in idea simply restatements of the main clause. 
Consequently, a fact is liable to be stated as its own 
cause, or its own result, or as occurring at the time 
of itself, or in its own manner. This is disguised 
by the changed language of the new clause, and it 
is perhaps the desire to change the language com- 
pletely that causes the logical force of the particle 
to be overlooked. We had an illustration in our 
last extract from " Beowulf " : — 

"... the edges of irons took him away, 
The hard battle-sharp leavings of hammers, 
So that the wide-flyer, still from his wounds, 
Fell on the earth near to the hoard-hall." 

LI. 2829 ff. 

This is not strictly a result of the dragon's death, 
but a restatement of it with new particulars. 

(c) Return to a dropped thought. — I will next 



364 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

consider that return to a dropped thought which is 
often claimed to be a confusing feature of the Anglo- 
Saxon style. I should say that it is usually jarring 
rather than confusing. Says Taine, " The poet's 
ideas are entangled ; without notice, abruptly, he 
will return to the idea he has quitted, and insert 
it in the thought to which he is giving expres- 
sion." x Some of Heinzel's instances of " crossed 
repetition," in which the poet passes back and 
forth between two thoughts, are not practically dif- 
ferent from ordinary repetition or parallelism. 
Take this case (King Hrethel is mourning for his 
son who has been accidentally killed) : — 

" Always is remembered on each one of mornings, 
His son's departure ; he wishes not 
To live to behold within the palace 
Another heir, when this one hath 
By the power of death experienced these deeds. 
Sorrowfully he beholds in his son's dwelling' 
The empty wine-hall, resting place of winds, 
Robbed of merriment ; the rider sleeps, 
The hero in the grave ; no sound of the harp is there, 
Joy in the courts, as once there was." 

Beowulf, 2451. 

Heinzel cites this passage because the son is first 
mentioned, then the house of the son, then the son 
again, and finally the house. He does not regard 
this as causing any obscurity, and it plainly does 
not. What wonder if, in the account of Eve's cre- 
ation in " Genesis," the poet calls our attention 
first to the Creator, then to Adam, and so back 
and forth ? The balance of expression is preserved 

1 Book I. chap. i. sec. v. 



DISCONNECTEDNESS 365 

by this presentation of two thoughts, or two sides 
of one thought. In the same way it causes no ob- 
scurity if the writer in a long description or narra- 
tive turns for a moment to dwell upon some cause 
or circumstance, only to return with renewed energy 
to the main theme. His coming back to the central 
topic is not strictly a " return to a dropped thought," 
though it may be called so. In this way the early 
Milton of the " Genesis " is enabled to increase 
the effectiveness of his portrayal of hell-torment. 
The brief reference to the cause of the punishment, 
which intervenes between the two parts of the de- 
scription, is not at all foreign to the subject ; yet 
Dr. Rehrmann says, " After two lines he returns 
once more to the same matter " : — 

a They suffer torment, 
Hot fierce fire in the midst of hell, 
Burning and broad flames, also hitter smoke, 
Vapor and darkness, because they were unmindful 
Of thaneship to God ; their lust betrayed them, 
The pride of the angel [Satan] ; they willed not to obey 
The commands of the Almighty ; they had terrible torment, 
Were felled then to the bottom of the fire, 
Into the hot heU through folly 
And through arrogance : they sought another land, 
Which was devoid of light and full of flame, 
A vast terror of fire. ,, 

Genesis, 323. 

(d) Clauses independent in construction, but 
dependent in thought. — We can see from this last 
passage why it is that Anglo-Saxon poets are 
charged with leaving thoughts and returning to 
them at pleasure. It is because this poetry ex- 



366 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

presses paratactically, in independent clauses, those 
ideas of time, cause, manner, and accompaniment, 
which we are accustomed to express syntactically, in 
subordinate clauses. Thus, there is nothing in the 
construction to indicate that the poet has not aban- 
doned his first line of thought and taken ilp a new 
one. Hence, if the reader does not keep his own 
mind on the key, he may fancy that the author is 
jumping about aimlessly. These short independ- 
ent constructions are a natural accompaniment of 
the poverty of the particles and the energy of the 
metre. A plainer instance of " return to a dropped 
thought,' ' due simply to parataxis, is found in 
" Beowulf," at the point where the hero and his 
men have left their boat upon the strand to seek 
the court of Hrothgar : — 

" Then they went on their way (the boat remained still, 
Rested at its moorings the wide-bosomed ship, 
At anchor fast) ; the boar-likeness shone 
Over their visors adorned with gold." 

Beowulf, 301. 

This backward glance at the ship as they leave it 
is not unnatural ; but, even if it were not so far 
prolonged, the passage of the mind once more to 
the warriors would be somewhat awkward and dif- 
ficult because of this blunt, independent manner of 
stating thoughts which are really not unconnected. 
The following instance is still more striking; 
but the return to a dropped thought could be ex- 
pressed in a well-worded clause of cause or reason, 
without causing any jarring : — 



DISCONNECTEDNESS 367 

" The sword then began 
On account of the battle-gore in clots of blood 
The war-bill to vanish (that was a wonder), 
So that it all melted most like to ice, 
When the frost's fetters the Father unlooses, 
Unwinds the ice-ropes, He who has power 
Over times and seasons ; that is the true Creator. 
Took he not in that dwelling, the Weder-Geats' prince, 
More of rich treasures, though he many there saw, 
But only the head [of Grendel] and the hilts together, 
With jewels adorned : the sword before melted, 
The etched brand burnt : the blood was so hot, 
The strange-spirit poisonous, who therein died. 
Soon was he swimming who lived through the strife, 
The war-rush of the foes, dived he up through the water," 

Beowulf, 1606. 

(e) Neglect of the order of time. — In the ac- 
counts of battles and similar tumultuous occur- 
rences an accurate order of time is often not 
observed. A mass of striking details are brought 
out in consecutive sentences, which details are not 
consecutive in their appearance or occurrence. 
This often becomes what has been called " the 
method of intersecting moments " (ten Brink). It 
is always a total effect that is sought, and this 
is often secured to a wonderful degree. Says ten 
Brink : " The portrayals of battles, although infi- 
nitely poorer in cast and artistic grouping, although 
much less realistic than the Homeric descriptions, 
are yet, at times, superior to them, in so far as 
the demoniac rage of war elicits from the Germanic 
fancy a crowding affluence of vigorous scenes, has- 
tily projected in glaring lights or grim half gloom." 1 

(f) Absence of climax. — The language of these 

1 Page 21. 



368 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

poems often seems somewhat haphazard and un- 
arranged, simply because no clear order of climax 
is observed in the repetitions — the appositives 
and parallels. The extracts have made this feature 
evident. Climax is so nearly an instinctive device 
with us moderns that one is not fitted to do justice 
to the power of this poetry until he becomes ac- 
customed to the absence of it. A good illustration 
is furnished in two lines that have already been 
cited : — 

11 [They] Wished to tell their sorrow, bewail the king", 
Wreak their words, and speak of the man." 

Beowulf, 3173. 

(g) Abrupt transitions. — As an example of the 
abrupt transitions which are found in this poetry, 
notice how quickly Beowulf is transferred from the 
shore of the lake into the midst of his contest with 
Grendel's mother : — 

" The water-flood took 
The warrior strong : then was a day's time 
Ere he the bottom-plain might perceive. 
Soon that discovered she who the course of the floods, 
Eager for slaughter had held for fifty years, 
Grim and greedy, that there some one of men 
The house of the monsters sought out from above. 
She grasped then against him, the warrior seized 
In her terrible grip." 

Beowulf, 1495. 

(h) Pronoun preceding its noun. Ambiguous 
pronoun. — It is a characteristic of Anglo-Saxon 
poetry, directly connected with its vividness and 
not usually causing any obscurity, to introduce an 
idea with a pronoun ; so that a person or thing may 



DISCONNECTEDNESS 369 

be under discussion or employed in the narrative 
before it has been clearly named. Says Heinzel : 
" A new conception floats so distinctly before the 
eyes of the poet that he introduces it with the pro- 
noun as if well known, and afterwards for the first 
time designates it unquestionably by its distinctive 
name." 1 This preposed pronoun is noticed by all 
writers upon Anglo-Saxon poetical style as fre- 
quently standing at the head of the sentence. But 
the idea that it introduces is usually one that has 
been already expressed or suggested, so that there 
is no confusion. For example : — 

" That from home learned Hygelac's thane, 
Good 'mong the Geats, the deeds of Grendel." 

Beowulf, 194. 

The " deeds of Grendel " have been mentioned 
in the preceding lines, unless we agree with Miillen- 
hof that the poem once began with these words. 
It is a similar feature of the style (noted by 
Heinzel) that we do not learn the name of " Hyge- 
lac's thane " until he says to Hrothgar, one hundred 
and fifty lines later, " Beowulf is my name." A 
good instance of this feature comes in a passage 
just cited under " abrupt transitions," — "Soon that 
discovered she," etc. An instance of an entirely 
new idea introduced by the pronoun, but one easily 
understood from the context, is the following : — 

" Then Scyld departed at the hour of fate, 
The warlike one to go into his Lord's keeping : 
They him then hore to the ocean's flood, 
His trusty comrades, as he himself bade." 

Beowulf, 26. 

1 Page 7. 



370 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

Thus this preposed pronoun does not cause ob- 
scurity, and its great vividness is its sufficient justi- 
fication. — With reference to the Anglo-Saxon pro- 
noun in poetry, it must be freely admitted that 
it is not always clear which one of two possible 
references a pronoun is intended to have. 

IV. FREEDOM FROM THE SENSUAL AND IDEALIZA- 
TION OF THE COMMON 

It is now time to mention a feature of Old Eng- 
lish poetry which must be always kept in mind. 
This feature is not connected in any way with the 
sharp impetuous alliteration ; indeed, it often seems 
to be hostile to it in spirit. It comes from the 
imaginative, poetical nature of the people, idealizing 
every experience. I refer to the freedom from the 
sensual and the idealization of the common. War 
and sorrow are the central ideas of this poesy ; but 
both are idealized. War is heroism, not slaughter. 
Beowulf fights twice to save the followers of his 
father's friend, and dies fighting to save his own 
subjects. 

Taine says, " Saxon poets painted warfare as 
a murderous fury, as a blind madness which shook 
flesh and blood, and awakened the instincts of the 
beasts of prey." l To this statement I must, in all 
humbleness, give a plain denial. Except so far as 
all warfare is a " murderous fury," it seems to me 
positively untrue. 

We have very few Anglo-Saxon love poems. The 

1 Book I. chap. ii. sec. ii. 



PURITY AND IDEALITY 371 

almost complete absence of the relation of lover and 
maid from this poetry, and the scanty references 
to that of husband and wife, are very striking. 
Woman appears but rarely, and then as the noble, 
honored spouse, chaste and dignified. She is her 
husband's best and dearest friend, bone of his 
bone, That this reticence concerning the most 
intimate of earthly relations did not come from 
coldness of heart is certain. One clear indication 
that it did not is contained in two poems, " The 
Lament of the Exiled Wife," " The Message of 
the Exiled Husband." The latter poem is better 
called " A Love-Letter," since there is nothing in 
it to show that the writer is a husband rather than 
a wooer. 1 Each of these tells of the torture of exile. 
The message of the banished lover says to the dear 
one: — 

" Himself now bids thee 
. that thou stir the sea, 

When thou shalt hear on the cliff's edge 

The singing of the sad cuckoo in the grove. 

Then do thou let no living man 

Hinder thy going, stay thy journey ! 

Straightway the mere seek, home of the mew. 

Sit in the sea-boat, until thou far to the south 

Over the mere-flood the man findest, 

Where the prince waits in hope of thee. 

. The man has no longing desires 
For steeds, nor for jewels, nor joys of the mead, 
For any treasures on earth fit for earls, 
O daughter of a prince, if he have not thee." 

1 F. A. Blackburn, " The ' Husband's Message,' " etc., Journal 
of Germanic Philology, vol. iii. pp. 1-13. 



372 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

The thousand years that separate us from this poem 
are but as one day : " Thanks to the human heart 
by which we live ! " 

Outside of a few of the Riddles, there is perhaps 
not a single impure suggestion in all the Anglo- 
Saxon poetry. I doubt if the world has ever seen 
a purer literature. 

The relation which is dearest of all to Anglo- 
Saxon poetry is that of lord and follower. This is 
free from fleshly taint, pure, ideal. Upon this pure, 
almost abstract relation, the Anglo-Saxon poet lav- 
ishes his loving attention. The retainer who de- 
serted his master in battle, were that master dead 
or alive, was forever disgraced. The Comitatus, 
Gef olgschaf t, was Pan-Germanic, I know, but where 
else was it so spiritual, so noble ? What other na- 
tion so dropped from its poetry the love of man and 
woman, and so fastened its attention upon the love 
of lord and follower ? Indeed, the true lord became 
exalted under this treatment to a very noble con- 
ception. He is the kind friend and guardian of all. 
Beowulf and Hrothgar grieve over the sufferings 
of their harassed people. Every pang is their own. 
It reminds one of the Christian conception of 
Christ's followers, that they constitute his very 
body — this intimate, loving relation between king 
and people. " The Wanderer," one of the most 
touching poems ever written, is the lament of a 
poor solitary over his dear, dead lord-friend. Such 
a nation easily became Christian. Many religious 
applications of the relation of lord and follower 



PURITY AND IDEALITY 373 

appear in the poetry as a result of the introduc- 
tion of Christianity. A favorite use of this con- 
ception was in order to express the love of Christ, 
the prince, toward the apostles or toward all true 
disciples, and their tender allegiance to him. Other 
sacred relations, too, were not unworthily typified 
by this central feature of Anglo-Saxon life. In the 
words of ten Brink, " God himself, in his relation 
to angels and men, was conceived as the almighty 
prince, as the beloved chieftain ; the devil, as the 
faithless vassal who antagonizes his gold-friend ; the 
heavenly throne was the gift-stool of the spirits." 1 

The harsh sounds both of war and grief are 
idealized into " songs." When Grendel's arm has 
been torn off, the Danes hear him singing " a ter- 
rible song," " an unvictorious lay " (Beowulf, 787). 
Beowulf's ringed blade " sang a greedy war-song " 
upon the head of Grendel's mother. And so with 
every class of sounds. 

The idealization of all that is commonplace 
permeates Anglo-Saxon life and poetry. The poor, 
unlettered hind, Caedmon, must sing in his turn. 
Over his barren life must be thrown the light of 
the ideal world. Etiquette is a prime consideration 
with the Anglo-Saxon ; and no good warrior fails 
in the definite ceremonials which are evidently 
considered of very great importance. The poem 
" Beowulf " is full of interesting details of court 
and warrior life. This life is all idealized, and 
nothing gross appears. Every person and object 

1 Page 3S. 



374 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

is exalted almost to a state of perfection, or is dis- 
missed from sight and mention as completely bad. 
Hunferth alone, as Heinzel notes, has any mixture 
of traits. The drinking itself is not a merely sensual 
pleasure. The warriors " bear themselves well " at 
the feast, declare their devotion to their lord, and 
promise to perform deeds of valor. This is not the 
influence of Christianity. Even when Christian- 
ity becomes, in different forms, the subject-matter 
of the poems, they are still thoroughly national. 
Christianity is a new wine in the old bottles. 

One cause of the fact already mentioned, that 
the battle-scenes in Anglo-Saxon poetry are not 
clear, is an indisposition to dwell upon wounds and 
slaughter. The poet delights in describing the 
preparations for a contest (see, for example, Cyne- 
wulf's " Elene," 25 ff.). The dewy-feathered eagle 
soars over the combatants. The wolf of the wold 
comes stealing forth and sings his terrible song. 
The warriors welcome the contest with bold words. 
But when the actual fighting begins, the poet takes 
refuge in striking generalities and powerful meta- 
phors. The details of slaughter neither interest 
nor concern him. Such anatomical details as Homer 
gives in describing wounds would disgust an Anglo- 
Saxon singer. And when the hero dies, the poet 
says, " he chooses the light of God," or " his soul 
goes from his breast to seek the glory of the sooth- 
fast," or " he departs on his journey forth." The 
imagination must be satisfied by a metaphor, rather 
than the sense by a strict description or narrative. 



PURITY AND IDEALITY 375 

In order to satisfy the imagination, also, causes, 
consequences, and accompaniments are often por- 
trayed, rather than the action or object itself, or 
at least more fully. The description of Grendel's 
haunted mere shows this at its best : — 

" There may each night an evil wonder be seen, 
Fire on the flood ; so wise a man lives not 
Of the sons of men, that he knows its bottom : 
Although the heath-stepper pressed by the hounds, 
The stag, strong of horns, may seek the grove, 
Pursued from afar, he his life will give, 
His life on the shore, before he will therein 
Hide his head. That is no pleasant place : 
Thence the surging waves mount up 
Wan toward the clouds, when the wind arouseth 
Loathly weather, until the air darkens, 
The heavens weep." 

Beowulf, 1366. 

The self-control which enables the poet to turn 
aside and give three and one half lines to this de- 
scription of the flying stag refusing to enter the 
haunted lake even to save his life, - — is rare in 
this poetry; but the general method of the de- 
scription is eminently Anglo-Saxon. The dry facts 
about the lake are not given, but their poetical 
values : you do not see the lake clearly, but you 
shudder. Notice how a full account of Beowulf's 
struggle with Grendel is avoided in the following 
lines : — 

" He (Grendel) seized then with his hands the firm-minded 
Warrior at rest ; he (Beowulf) reached out against 
The fiend with his hand, quickly he grasped 
The evil-minded one and took firm hold of his arm. 1 

1 This is the translation of Professor Blackburn. Garnett 
translates, "and on his arm sat." 



376 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

Soon that perceived the hostile guardian 

That he had never met in the mid-earth, 

In the regions of earth, in another man 

A greater hand-grip : he in mind became 

In his soul frightened, not therefore could he sooner get away ; 

His mind was death-ready, wished to flee into darkness, 

To seek the devil-band : there was no employment for him there 

Such as he in former days before had found.' ' 

Beowulf, 747. 

Next the poet depicts at length the devastation 
of the beautiful wine-hall ; and then the effect of 
the contest upon the panic-stricken Danes who 
were listening. Thus there is no full account of 
the combat itself, but a complete recital of such 
accessories and results of the combat as will tend 
to exalt our conception of it. 

V. SERIOUSNESS 

There was an ethical sternness and a grand 
earnestness in the Anglo-Saxons, which was mir- 
rored in an all-pervading seriousness of style. Says 
ten Brink, — " A profound and serious conception 
of what makes man great, if not happy, of what 
his duty exacts, testifies to the devout spirit of 
English paganism, a paganism which the Christian 
doctrine certainly softened, but did not transform in 
its innermost nature." 1 This temperament excludes 
from the poetry of this people everything which the 
poet feels to border upon the comic ; even evil and 
crime are idealized into an unrelieved blackness 
and gloom which is too solemn to admit of mirth. 

1 Page 29. 



SERIOUSNESS 377 

Cynewulf leaves out of his "Juliana" several 
comical features in his Latin original. Within a 
hundred years of the landing of the missionaries 
from Rome, the Anglo-Saxons were the most in- 
tensely religious people on earth, the most active 
in missionary effort. Heinzel would make their 
seriousness and tenderness, " Erweichung des Ge- 
miithes," to be the result of Christianity. Gum- 
mere has the whole weight of authority and the 
only natural interpretation of the literature on his 
side when he opposes this view. 

A great fondness for moralizing appears every- 
where. The shortness and uncertainty of life are 
constantly called up. This is often an artistic 
blemish. A remarkable instance of moralizing is 
offered in " Beowulf," when the hero has just killed 
Grendel's mother, and so exterminated the hated 
race. King Hrothgar salutes him with a few 
courtly compliments, followed by a long moralizing 
speech of eighty-five lines (1701-85). Miillen- 
hoff cuts this speech out, but it fits Hrothgar's 
character. At any rate, some Anglo-Saxon poet 
wrote it, and some Anglo-Saxon poet put it into 
" Beowulf." At the moment of Beowulf's triumph, 
Hrothgar predicts the sorrows which shall surely 
come : — 

" Now the fame of thy strength 
Lasts for a time ; afterward it soon shall he 
That thee sickness or the sword shall deprive of strength, 
Or the grasp of fire, or the wave of the flood, 
Or the grip of the sword, or the flight of the shaft, 



378 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

Or cruel old age ; or the brightness of the eyes 
Shall fail and grow dark : it suddenly shall be 
That thee, great warrior, death shall overcome.' ' 

Beowulf, 1762. 

He cites the vicissitudes of his own life, and at 
different points warns Beowulf against the sins 
which beset rulers. Some of the massive generali- 
ties in such passages are almost " Bunsbyisms " in 
their solemn saying of little or nothing : — 

" Fate oft preserves 
The undoomed earl, if his strength holds out." 

Beowulf, 572. 

The beautiful close of " Widsith " is weakened 
by an expression like this. Passages which have 
a touch of the humorous to us, very certainly did 
not have it to the serious Anglo-Saxons. The poet 
of that part of " Beowulf " takes the following way 
of saying that Hrothgar's warriors did not dare 
to sleep in Heorot after Grendel's visits : — 

" Then was it easy to find one who elsewhere, 
More commodiously, rest for himself sought." 

Beowulf, 138. 

Cynewulf saw no absurdity in the following pas- 
sage. Elene says to the Jews : — 

" Ye with filth did spit 
On his countenance who for you the light of the eyes, 
A remedy from blindness wrought 
Anew through that noble spittle.' ' 

Elene, 297. 

VI. TENDERNESS 

If the forcible style demanded by the allitera. 
tive metre was especially fitted to express vigor 



TENDERNESS 379 

of thought and action and the rage of battle, for 
what topics was the constant repetition, the great 
abundance of epithet, the endless ringing of all the 
changes upon a thought, especially adapted ? Can 
any device of style be better fitted than this cease- 
less caressing of a thought for expressing grief, 
sorrow, especially in the milder forms of melan- 
choly and tender memory ? And the Anglo-Saxons 
are as tender and thoughtful as they are brave. The 
vast problems of life and death oppress the hearts 
which do not quake before the enemy. The well- 
known comparison of the life of man to the flight 
of a swallow through a lighted hall and out into 
the darkness, finds an echo in almost every Anglo- 
Saxon poem that has come down to us. The extent 
to which Matthew Arnold often reproduced the 
tone of much of Anglo-Saxon poetry is marvelous. 
His paganism and Beowulf's have the same sad 
earnestness : " The wheel is come full circle." The 
blood of race, or of a common humanity, is thicker 
than the water of culture. 

Elegiac pathos, tender mournfulness, is then, 
an important feature of the style of this poetry. 
" Beowulf " is full of it. But it finds perhaps its 
most complete artistic expression in " The Wan- 
derer." This poem, while distinctly Anglo-Saxon 
in atmosphere, marks a higher grade of style and 
literary skill than is common. The author stands 
above his subject, even while identified with it in 
spirit. Instead of repeating the same ideas, he em- 
ploys new ones which arouse the same feelings ; 



380 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 

new references and methods of approach, which yet 
have the same spiritual effect and relationships. 
Thus he constantly brings in fresh elements, while 
securing all the power which came from the more 
usual repetitions. All the different thoughts agree 
in illustrating the brief life, the unhappy lot of 
man. " The Wanderer " has lost his dear lord and 
is friendless in the world. Hear him ! 

" Oft the fugitive findeth mercy, 
The mildness of God. Moody and weary, 
Wandering ever over the water-way, 
Hath he with hands of toil, homeless and sad, 
Stirred the sea, rime-cold. Rigorous fate ! " 

General moralizing is followed and enforced by 
his own particular misery with great pathos : — 

" The weary of mind may not withstand 
Fate, nor his fierce heart furnish him help ; 
Therefore do those thirsting for glory 
Oft the sad spirit shut in the breast-case. 
I, too, distressed with care, torn from my country, 
Oft have been forced, far from my kinsmen, 
My spirit within me with fetters to seal." 

" Bitter his lot who long must forego 
The counsel and love, the care of his lord-friend. 
When sorrow and sleep stealing upon him 
Fast the poor lone one lock in their folds, 
It seems to his mind, the man-lord once more 
He embraces and kisses, and bends on that lap 
His hands and his head in homage, as once 
In days that are gone he knelt at the gift-stool. 
Then waketh from dreaming the desolate man, 
Fallow before him the waves of the flood 
Sees, and the birds, bathing and soaring, 
The hoar-frost, the snow mingled with sleet." 

His own past happiness and present grief are 



CONCLUSION 381 

mirrored in much that he sees about him. Sorrow 
and death are the lot of man : — 

" The strength of the spears, weapons of slaughter, 
Brought death to the lords (illustrious doom !) ; 
And beaten by rain stand the ramparts of stone. 
The earth in the frost-chains the falling storm binds, 
The terror of winter, and darkens the world ; 
The night-shadows fall, from the north rushes forth 
On the heroes of earth the hail in its fury." ' 

This is poetry ; and would be counted such in 
any cultivated nation, at any time. If we thus let 
our subject go out with an elegy and to a dead- 
march, it is only what this poetry is always doing. 
Behind every joy and at every banquet, to the 
mind of the Anglo-Saxon, wait disappointment 
and sorrow. He will be heroic, because heroism 
is right and good ; but, whether by the gate of 
failure or by that of success, he knows that he will 
soon come where " sits the Shadow feared of man." 

CONCLUSION 

It will be seen that I have treated the Anglo- 
Saxon poetry of all periods and all authors as a 
homogeneous whole. It can be so regarded in a 
general paper like this. Its epics have all elegiac 
passages and episodes. Its lyrics, whether warlike 
or elegiac, read like extracts from such epics as 
" Beowulf," " Genesis," and " Judith." It will be 
noted also further, that the first three qualities of 
the style of this poetry which have been pointed 
out, pertain to the style in the strictest sense of 
that term, that is to the manner of saying what 



382 



ANGLO-SAXON POETRY 



is said — the grammatical and rhetorical devices 
employed in the expression of thought. The last 
three qualities are more general, and concern also 
the subject-matter of the poetry. The fourth qual- 
ity, the Freedom from the Sensual and the Ideal- 
ization of the Common, indicates the mental stand- 
point of the Anglo-Saxon poet — his method of 
approach to his themes. The last two qualities, 
Seriousness and Tenderness, call attention to his 
predominant emotions — the settled, familiar ex- 
periences of his soul. 



NATURAL SCIENCE IN A LITERARY 
EDUCATION 



NATUEAL SCIENCE IN A LITEEAEY 
EDUCATION i 

The greatest forms of literature hold the mir- 
ror up to Nature — that is, to life. Literary con- 
ventions, even, go back at some point to real life. 
Because actual Sicilian shepherds once piped their 
happy songs where Theocritus heard them, the 
world has had its long line of pastoral poetry, an 
intolerable deal of the sack of empty repetition and 
formalism to one half pennyworth of the bread of 
reality. In spite of traditions, however, the more 
important literature of the world has kept in touch 
with actual life. Of Shakespeare and Chaucer we 
can confidently say that, though each had a library 
at home, he found another and a better one upon 
the street. 

Science has invaded the life of to-day ; its de- 
vices meet us at every turn, its great conceptions 
fill our minds. What shall be the attitude toward 
science of those students who wish a literary edu- 
cation? Shall they devote themselves entirely to 
the study of the classic productions in the languages 
of ancient and modern nations ? or shall they take 
up also those advancing lines of scientific investi- 
gation and speculation which are producing new 

1 Revised from the The Popular Science Monthly for May, 1896. 



386 NATURAL SCIENCE 

instruments for every-day life and new themes for 
thought, and which are fashioning anew the very 
minds and language of men ? 

In answer to this question we shall note briefly 
that scientific facts and conceptions are steadily 
finding their way into literature itself; also that 
the study of science is of special service to the 
writer, whether he be engaged in the production 
of pure literature or in the exposition of thought. 
We shall consider, too, that mental largeness, intel- 
lectual catholicity, demands the development of 
the mind upon the scientific side ; and that each 
department of science supplies a valuable form of 
mental training. 

The literature of an age takes up into itself the 
whole mental life of the time. He who would ade- 
quately interpret present literature should know 
the major facts and theories of modern science, for 
these have pressed their way even into writing that 
is especially marked by beauty and imagination. 
Henceforth literature will increasingly draw sub- 
ject-matter from the domain of the sciences. This 
is a revolution which cannot go backward. The 
clearness with which Wordsworth foresaw, in 1800, 
that poetry itself would submit to this tendency, 
is truly remarkable. He said in that year, in the 
preface which he wrote for the second edition of 
the " Lyrical Ballads " : — 

u If the labors of men of science should ever create 
any material revolution ... in our condition, and in 
the impressions which we habitually receive, the poet 



IN A LITERARY EDUCATION 387 

will sleep then no more than at present ; he will be ready- 
to follow the steps of the man of science. . . . The re- 
motest discoveries of the chemist, the botanist, or miner- 
alogist, will be as proper objects of the poet's art as any 
upon which it can be employed, if the time should ever 
come when these things shall be familiar to us, and the 
relations under which they are contemplated by the fol- 
lowers of these respective sciences shall be manifestly 
and palpably material to us as enjoying and suffering 
beings. If the time should ever come when what is now 
called science, thus familiarized to men, shall be ready 
to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the poet 
will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and 
will welcome the being thus produced as a dear and 
genuine inmate of the household of man." 

There are many illustrations of the fact that a 
general knowledge of science is needed to interpret 
contemporary literature. Tennyson constantly re- 
fers to the great scientific discoveries and concep- 
tions of his time. How shall a reader ignorant of 
those conceptions fully appreciate him ? Professor 
William H. Hudson, in a striking article, 1 speaks 
of " Tennyson's keen interest in science ; his sym- 
pathetic hold upon the vast movements in progress 
around him ; his manly attitude toward the changes 
that life and thought were everywhere undergoing." 
Even the casual reader of Tennyson must have 
noted how deep is his interest in scientific study, 
and how fully the great conceptions of modern 
science find expression in his poetry. Indeed, there 
seems to be a prophetic element in this. As Miss 

1 " Poetry and Science," Popular Science Monthly, October, 1894. 



388 NATURAL SCIENCE 

Scudder has noted, 1 it is hard to realize in read- 
ing some parts of " In Memoriam" that it was 
published in 1850, nine years before Darwin's 
" Origin of Species." 

The study of science has a bearing, too, upon 
the production of literature, as well as upon its 
interpretation. The great scientific ideas have espe- 
cial power to arouse the imagination, and they 
furnish symbols of incomparable value for the 
skillful setting forth and enforcing of thought. 

Great forms of thought, mighty moulds which 
of necessity give shape to our thinking and then to 
our very imaginings, — these come to us from the 
study of things, not from the study of language. 
Literature itself must largely find its raw material, 
its great metaphors and similes, its vivid pictures 
and mighty symbols, within the domain of natural 
science, and this increasingly as the years go by. 
The chemist's law of definite and multiple propor- 
tions ; the laws of motion ; the phenomena and 
laws of light, heat, and electricity ; the strata, the 
glaciers, and the processes of earth-sculpture of the 
geologist ; the winds, tides, and ocean currents ; 
the theories of animal evolution ; the struggle for 
existence, the survival of the fittest ; the mighty 
phenomena, the impressive uniformities, the neb- 
ular hypothesis of astronomy — these are great 
forms of thought as well as facts and theories of 
science. A man who is unacquainted with modern 

1 The Life of the Spirit in the Modern English Poets, Boston, 
1895, p. 10. 



IN A LITERARY EDUCATION 389 

science cannot well understand the language of 
educated men, he cannot interpret sympathetically 
and adequately the literature of his own day, and 
he cannot make use of some of the most powerful 
symbols that exist for the expression of ideas. 
Standing in the midst of a mighty speaking uni- 
verse, he will find himself, in a measure, tongue-tied 
because deaf. 

Professor Drummond's suggestive book, "Nat- 
ural Law in the Spiritual World," showed what 
powerful instruments science furnishes for the ex- 
position and enforcement of thought. The funda- 
mental importance to the speaker and writer of 
finding effective symbols for his thought is perhaps 
best illustrated by the parables of Christ ; " with- 
out a parable spake he not unto them." 

This point deserves illustration. A friend of the 
writer wished recently to present in a sermon the 
idea and conviction that man's moral nature tes- 
tifies truly concerning the great moral ideas, and 
truly, even though not fully, concerning the nature 
of God. Undoubtedly a sermon upon this theme 
might appeal directly to the facts of each soul's 
experience and to the great moral affirmations of 
our nature with such effectiveness as to awaken in 
the hearer a sense of the great moral realities that 
underlie our lives, and a vision of the truth that 
the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, that 
we are also His offspring. But an immaterial 
truth of this kind needs some great symbol from 
the physical world to aid in expounding and im- 



390 NATURAL SCIENCE 

pressing it, to give it clearness, freshness, and 
power. In this case the symbol chosen was that of 
the spectroscope, as it receives the rays from the 
distant sun, and testifies truly by the lines across 
the spectrum concerning the nature of the great 
source of light. 

" Just as the spectroscope testifies that what is true 
on the earth is true in the sun also, and affords one 
more proof of the material unity of the universe, — so 
the whole world of men is a kind of moral spectrum, 
across which appear the lines which represent truth, 
duty, righteousness, love, aspiration, — lines which re- 
present man's way of thinking and feeling about things 
in life because they first of all represent God's way of 
thinking and feeling about them. Our moral convic- 
tions, our moral ideals, then, have actual worth. Our 
knowledge is knowledge as far as it goes ; it corresponds 
to something that is real, something that is in the back- 
ground, greater than we can grasp or understand, but 
still the reality on which we can build our life." 

It is also true that the larger facts of modern 
science constitute an incomparable challenge and 
stimulus to the imagination. The electric thrill 
circles the earth ere a swift-footed Achilles could 
gird up his loins to run. An instructor in rhetoric 
in the University of Chicago made the statement 
a few years ago that the most vivid and imagina- 
tive themes which came to him from a certain 
class were written by some pupils interested in 
geology upon simple topics connected with the his- 
tory of the earth. Some of the great writers of 
coming days are already 



IN A LITERARY EDUCATION 391 

" nourishing- a youth sublime 
With the fairy tales of science." 

The value of scientific study is not to be mea- 
sured, of course, by the extent to which it ministers 
to the production and appreciation of good litera- 
ture. The necessity of some knowledge of science, 
in order that the educated man may possess his in- 
tellectual birthright as a member of his own gen- 
eration, furnishes a fundamental and unanswerable 
argument for such study. It seems almost a viola- 
tion of mental integrity, of intellectual wholeness, 
for an educated man to turn away from that por- 
tion of human knowledge which is increasing most 
rapidly, which is changing the outward fashion of 
our life, and which is transforming the world of 
thought. That ideal of education will never go 
entirely out of fashion which demands that each 
student make a brave and earnest attempt, even 
though it can never be more than partially suc- 
cessful, " to see life steadily, and see it whole." 
This ideal will always appeal to some minds, and 
its advocates will judge colleges and universities by 
their success in furnishing education of this type. 

Is there any practical difficulty besides the obvi- 
ous limitations of time and strength which prevents 
students of literature from obtaining an outline 
knowledge of the more important branches of 
modern science ? Unquestionably, the great diffi- 
culty is a conviction on the part of these students 
themselves that scientific study is without value 
for them. But in some cases this is not the only 



392 NATURAL SCIENCE 

obstacle. Some of the introductory courses in 
science in the American institutions of collegiate 
grade seem to be planned for those who wish to 
make specialties of the sciences. Brief, synoptic 
culture courses are accessible in many institutions, 
and sometimes in all of the major sciences ; but in 
other cases they are disbelieved in and are not 
offered. 

It may be granted that literary students should 
study some one fundamental science more fully 
than has been indicated, as a guard against habits 
of superficiality ; but if they are to make any such 
acquaintance with the " circle of the sciences " 
as it seems clear that they should, it must be by 
means of synoptic culture courses, since literary 
studies will of necessity claim most of their time. 

Some scientists will think this proposal foolish 
and impracticable. It will seem to them absurd 
that a man should try to study chemistry, for ex- 
ample, especially because of its value for mental 
culture ; that he should be vitally interested in the 
fundamental facts of metallurgy, in the law of 
definite and multiple proportions, and the atomic 
theory, and have only a languid interest in the 
details of the chemical laboratory. But there are 
scientists whose standing is unquestioned who be- 
lieve in the value and practicability of the courses 
here advocated. 

The particular kind of mental training which 
each science is fitted to impart gives to it a distinct 
educational value. The power to observe and in- 



IN A LITERARY EDUCATION 393 

terpret the vital and material phenomena of the 
great world enlarges and enriches the mental life. 
The mathematics and the more exact physical sci- 
ences, on the other hand, help, as no other branches 
of study can, to give to the mind habits of accu- 
racy and a sense of proportion. Some persons 
would claim that the different branches of study, 
whether scientific or humanistic, are substantially 
equal and even identical in disciplinary power and 
general educational value. This proposition I can- 
not accept. Literature, for example, is an indis- 
pensable element in an education, but it does not 
give all kinds of knowledge and mental training. 
Those students who look upon literature as in itself 
an education will find — or others will find it out 
if they do not — that they have accepted it in some 
measure instead of an education. One cannot omit 
the other great subjects from his training, and then 
make up for their loss by reading his Browning, 
his Chaucer, or even his Shakespeare, more often 
and more strenuously. In a class in literature 
many questions do not admit of exact answers ; 
the personal element must come in ; the answers 
of the most careful instructor are only an approxi- 
mation to the truth ; the answers of the most 
superficial scholar will not be entirely wrong. In- 
deed, since a literary masterpiece makes its appeal 
primarily to the emotions and the imagination, the 
whole conception of definite, exact answers to 
specific questions has but a limited application 
to the work of the class in literature. In mathe- 



394 NATURAL SCIENCE 

matics and the more exact physical sciences each 
problem is specific, and has one answer that is 
exactly right ; all other possible answers are ex- 
actly and entirely wrong. Every man needs the 
discipline of such study. 

Even professional literary critics are often de- 
cidedly lacking in proportion, poise, and sharpness 
of outline. Let me illustrate. Mr. Swinburne 
speaks thus of Collins : " He could put more spirit 
of color into a single stroke, more breath of music 
into a single note, than could all the rest of his 
generation into all the labors of their lives." 1 The 
same critic comments as follows upon some of the 
poems of Keats : " ' The Ode to a Nightingale,' 
one of the final masterpieces of human work in all 
time and for all ages, is immediately preceded in 
all editions now current by some of the most 
vulgar and fulsome doggerel ever whimpered by a 
vapid and effeminate rhymester in the sickly stage 
of whelphood." 2 

Without objecting now to the qualitative judg- 
ments here expressed, let us ask, How about the 
quantity of praise and blame that is bestowed? 
Is it probable that the writer of these words ever 
had much thorough training in the mathematics 
and physical sciences ? Indeed, can he ever have 
studied anything quantitatively ? 

It is not the main purpose of this article, how- 
ever, to argue for the disciplinary value of scientific 



1 Ward's English Poets, iii. p. 282. 

2 Encyclopaedia Britannica, article upon 



Keats. 



IN A LITERARY EDUCATION 395 

study ; its more direct and substantive value for 
the student of literature is the primary thought 
set forth. There seem to be two great types of 
collegiate education, the literary and the scientific. 
The writer firmly believes that natural science has 
an important role to play in the ideal literary 
education ; and in support of this position he 
appeals to the prophecy of Wordsworth, to the 
poetry of Tennyson, and above all to the reason of 
the case. 



WAS POE ACCURATE? 



WAS POE ACCURATE? 

In an article entitled " The American Rejection 
of Poe," which, appeared in " The Dial" of Jan- 
uary 16, 1899, Mr. Charles Leonard Moore used 
these words : — 

" Poe, a logic machine, was absolutely incapable of 
those pleasing flaws and deficiencies which allow other 
people to have a good opinion of themselves. He al- 
ways added up true." 

Probably most persons would think of " The 
Gold-Bug " as the best illustration of the accurate 
working of Poe's mind. The celebrated crypto- 
graph there found solves itself all right, I presume. 
There are some mathematical statements in this 
story, however, which are impossible. 

The negro, Jupiter, is compelled by his master, 
William Legrand, to climb " an enormously tall 
tulip-tree, which . . . far surpassed ... all other 
trees which I had then ever seen, in the beauty 
of its foliage and form, in the wide spread of its 
branches, and in the general majesty of its ap- 
pearance." The first great branch was "some sixty 
or seventy feet from the ground." Jupiter is told 
to pass by six large limbs on a particular side of 
this tree, and to climb out upon the seventh. This 

1 Reprinted from The Dial, March 16, 1899. 



400 WAS POE ACCURATE f 

last proves to be a dead branch, but capable of 
bearing the negro's weight, and he climbs " mos' 
out to de eend." Here he discovers a skull nailed 
to the limb. Legrand tells him to use the " gold- 
bug," tied to the end of a string, as a plumb-line, 
dropping it through " the left eye of the skull." 
A peg is driven into the ground at the precise spot 
where the beetle falls. Legrand then fastened one 
end of a tape-measure " at that point of the trunk 
of the tree which was nearest the peg, . . . unrolled 
it till it reached the peg, and thence farther un- 
rolled it, in the direction already established, 
for the distance of fifty feet." About the spot thus 
obtained as a centre, the three associates excavated 
a pit four feet in diameter to the depth of seven 
feet, but found nothing. It was then discovered 
that Jupiter had dropped the beetle through the 
wrong eye. The peg was therefore removed to " a 
spot about three inches " from the previous point. 
" Taking, now, the tape-measure from the nearest 
point of the trunk to the peg, as before, and con- 
tinuing the extension in a straight line to the dis- 
tance of fifty feet, a spot was indicated, removed by 
several yards from the point at which we had been 
digging." 

The impossibility of the statement italicized will 
be at once apparent. If the skull was found ten 
feet away from the trunk of the tree — was it not 
farther ? — the centre of the new circle for digging 
was about six times three inches from the point 
around which they dug at first, that is, about eight- 



WAS POE ACCURATE? 401 

een inches. If the skull were only five feet from 
the trunk, the second point for digging would be 
about thirty-three inches from the first. 

The journey of the three associates to the place 
where the chest was discovered lay " through a 
tract of country excessively wild and desolate." 
After traveling " for about two hours," they " en- 
tered a region infinitely more dreary than any yet 
seen. It was a species of table-land, near the sum- 
mit of an almost inaccessible hill, densely wooded 
from base to pinnacle, and interspersed with huge 
crags that appeared to lie loosely upon the soil. . . . 
Deep ravines, in various directions, gave an air of 
still sterner solemnity to the scene." 

The chest found contained " rather more than 
four hundred and fifty thousand dollars" in gold 
coins of various nations, " estimating the value of 
the pieces, as accurately as we could, by the tables 
of the period." The gold dollar of the United States 
weighs 25 4-5 grains, and there are 7000 grains 
in the avoirdupois pound. Gold coin to the value 
of $450,000 would weigh, roughly stated, about 
1655 pounds. Poe tells us that the weight of 
the other valuables in the chest " exceeded three 
hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois," not includ- 
ing "one hundred and ninety-seven superb gold 
watches." This makes the total weight of treasure 
over 2000 pounds. The three companions, un- 
exhausted by their journey and prolonged digging, 
carried home one third of this treasure in the solid 
chest over the route indicated above. They reached 



402 WAS POE ACCURATE? 

their hut " in safety, but after excessive toil, at 
one o'clock in the morning." After a rest of one 
hour, they set off, " armed with three stout sacks," 
to secure the remaining two thirds of the booty. 
They got back to the hut with this, " just as the 
first streaks of the dawn gleamed from over the 
treetops in the east." On the second return jour- 
ney, if the estimate here given "adds up true," 
each of the three must have carried about 450 
pounds of gold and gems. Certainly, at the time 
of this achievement, Poe — who tells the story as 
if himself the third party in the enterprise — had 
not weakened his bodily powers by dissipation. 

In " The Murders in the Rue Morgue " we read : 
" On the hearth were two or three long and thick 
tresses of gray human hair, also dabbled with 
blood, and seeming to have been pulled out by the 
roots." Later in the story, the infallible Dupin 
says : " You saw the locks in question as well as 
myself. Their roots (a hideous sight !) were clotted 
with fragments of the flesh of the scalp — sure 
token of the prodigious power which had been ex- 
erted in uprooting perhaps half a million of hairs 
at a time." (The italics are not in Poe's text.) 

The Bible suggests that God alone can accurately 
number the hairs upon the human head ; but one 
cannot think that it would have involved any 
impiety if Poe had made his partial estimate in this 
passage a little more reasonable. 

Let us disabuse our minds, then, of the notion 
that Poe always " adds up true." 



WAS POE ACCURATE f 403 

But a truce to petty fault-finding ! Poe's fame 
is secure, though it is not probable that he will ever 
be popular. His was essentially an original mind : 
he was a literary discoverer, and the world does not 
often forget its discoverers. His message is mainly, 
perhaps, to literary craftsmen. Whether we think 
of the detective story; of the scientific romance, 
since carried farther by Jules Verne and others ; 
of what we may call " the short-story of atmos- 
phere " ; of certain fundamental truths in " the 
philosophy of composition " ; of the true theory of 
English versification, since elaborated by Sidney 
Lanier ; or of Poe's own peculiar type of intensely 
musical poetry, with its fascinating use of tone- 
color, parallelism, and repetition — we can say with 
substantial truth, that he w r as — 

" the first that ever burst 
Into that silent sea." 



EUctrotyfed and printed by H. O. Houghton 6r* Co. 
Cambridge > Mass., U.S.A. 



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